Along the Moors - Eyton upon the Weald Moors

Hortonwood and the Hoo

That the Eyton’s sphere of influence on the Weald Moors extended beyond the confines of the village itself owed much to the disconnected nature of their ancient estate. Until the mid-17th Century, the family held two extensive blocks of land on the other side of the moorlands at Hortonwood and The Hoo. It seems likely the former probably consisted of the same half a league of woodland and hay recorded near Horton Township at the time of the Domesday in 1086. By the early 1600s, several clearings were made for a number of new smallholdings, although the Eyton’s carefully preserved some of the remaining woodland (containing oak, ash, crab and yew) as a place for their tenants to pasture cattle and collect timber.

The Eyton’s sold their holdings in the east of the moors (comprising 24 tenements and woodland known as ‘The Hackles’) in 1659 ,when they also relinquished Hoo Hall, a property through which they had controlled a quarter of Preston Manor. The half-timbered dwelling dates from 1712, although evidence suggests a house has stood on the site (which is situated between Horton and Preston) since the middle ages and remnants of a moat and two fish ponds associated with the earlier property remain extant near to the current edifice. In 1731, Hoo Hall was purchased by the Trustees of Preston Hospital and remained with their estate (which by 1772 incorporated the whole of Hortonwood) until the 1950s. Just a few years later in 1963, the remainder of the family estate was broken up when Eyton Hall and its home farm were sold to RG Murphy, Chairman of the Wrekin Brewery Company, bringing the direct involvement of the dynasty in the affairs of the moorlands to an end after nearly a thousand years.