Whitley Hall looms large in the Shurtleff/Shiercliffe legend. I first saw the black and white photo of it, the one wing alone, when I was a child. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I think it still stood.

Thomas Shiercliffe, son of Robert (who owned Hoyle House down the road) and 3x great grandson of WIlliam, bought Whitley Hall from Thomas Parker April 9,1622. In his will of 1636, Whitley consisted on the hall, a corn mill, dovecote, smelting house, eight fields, two acres of woods and four cottages, gardens, orchards and one tanyard, as Thomas was a leather tanner. There is a rumor that George Talbot, the Lord of Shrewsbury, who was in charge of Mary, Queen of Scots, keeping her at several estates and out of sight from 1570 to 1585, brought her to Whitley, but it is thought not, even though the Shiercliffes were the Keepers of the Game since Henry VII, and answered directly to both Shrewsbury and his ill fated friend, the Duke of Norfolk. The Peacock Room, upstairs in the original building, is said to be haunted by the vision of Mary. Wicked Nicholas Shiercliffe is said to haunt the east wing. And what a treasure to discover the boathouse, built by Thomas in 1630. There are no recordings of this brick building in the lake, anywhere, but here.

Whitley Hall was the reason I came to England, to see, feel, touch and walk into my ancestral home.