By his marriage to an heiress, Thomas Throckmorton acquired an estate at Weston Underwood in 1446, although the original mansion had been probably constructed a while earlier. The dwelling was then greatly rebuilt in the 16th century by Robert Throckmorton, and in the village church may be seen a brass that depicts his five daughters and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Hungerford. A later Robert Throckmorton was made a baronet on September 1st, 1642, but, because of his Royalist sympathies, before making a journey out of the area his wife had to explain her reasons to the Governor of the Newport Pagnell Parliamentary garrison; ‘My husband lying most dangerously ill grant me a pass that I may go with all convenient haste to Moor Hall, near Alcester in Warwickshire, where his mother resides. I engage on my word, which I will not falsify but will return with all convenient speed.’ She was granted her pass, but having exceeded her stay she again wrote to the Governor to ‘present my respects and give you an account of my return, although not so soon as I determined, by reason of my dear husbands extremity, which urged my stay which time I hope you will dispense withal.’
Apart from the presence of the Parliamentarians at Newport Pagnell, in the following year a much larger force descended on the local area, and on June 13th, 1645, the Earl of Essex was duly informed that ‘Lt. Gen. Oliver Cromwell has taken up his quarters at Lady Throckmorton’s house and they say he has with him 1,000 horse and dragoons.’ Then in the wake of the final Parliamentarian victory Weston Hall was sequestered in 1647, and Robert Throckmorton sought refuge in Worcester. He died in 1650 and lies buried at Coughton, Warwickshire, which was then the main residence of the family. In November, 1680, the second baronet died at Weston Underwood, and although his eldest son had died some four years ago at Bruges, his heart was returned for burial in Weston Underwood church – as recalled by the inscription on a marble memorial of the south aisle. Robert, his younger brother, therefore became the 3rd Baronet, and after succeeding to the estate around the year 1710 he built the northern front of Weston Hall which, facing the Park, was separated from it by a sunken fence, or ‘ha ha.’ In fact in plan the mansion had essentially evolved as a quadrangle around a court, although to the locals this was more irreverently known as the ‘gaol yard’!
When in 1819 the fifth baronet died without children, the inheritance passed to his brother, Sir George, the 6th baronet who, having married Catharina Courtenay, assumed the name and arms of Courtenay in 1792. Aged 72, he died in 1826, and his brother, Charles, then became the 7th Baronet. Having lain unoccupied for over two centuries, Weston Hall was by now in a dilapidated condition and, with the southern part little more than a ruin, to the great regret of the village the Baronet had the building pulled down in 1827, with the household, library and gallery, including the stained glass, being transferred to the main family residence at Coughton. As for the site of the mansion, ‘The wild winds from the surrounding hills now sweep unchecked and mournfully over that space, the abode of the wise, the powerful, and the brave.’ During the demolition of the Hall several clandestine secrets were revealed, including in the floor of an attic chapel a trapdoor which lead to a small room below. Therein were found an old bed, two mattresses, a candlestick, a crust of bread, some chicken bones, a priest’s breviary, and a ladder, (which provided access to the trapdoor), but such revelations seemed of little surprise, for the family had always been of a Catholic sympathy; indeed, ‘Tradition informs us that there was scarcely a plot to accomplish Catholic ascendancy, and the restoration of the Stuarts, which had not the name of Throckmorton attached to it.’ In fact for possessing incriminating documents one member was tortured in the Tower of London, to be duly executed in July, 1584. A while later another Throckmorton only avoided a similar fate through the swift action of his neighbour at Lathbury. Overhearing her father being ordered to search the Throckmorton’s home for arms, she hurried by carriage to Weston, and arrived just in time to raise the alarm.
Upon the site of the old building, in 1838 Sir Robert Throckmorton had a new mansion constructed, to include seven mullioned windows to illuminate the central floor. Paved with black and white marble flags, these had been salvaged from the entrance of the previous Hall, and being studied with golden stars the ceiling was painted mazarine blue. With a portion of the old House retained as the residence for a priest, a new family chapel was built from a part of the surviving east stables, but, when the beams of the chapel were removed to heighten the ceiling, the walls became so weakened that, within a few years, they had collapsed. Nevertheless, the chapel was decorated and improved in 1883, but has long since been demolished. At the new mansion, on the coming of age of his son the 8th Baronet invited over 400 of the tenants and ‘poorer classes of the district’ to a dinner, and under the auspices of the master and the estate bailiff, Mr. Dent, (a veteran of Waterloo), the children and elderly women were entertained in the village school. The evening then closed with a display of fireworks and dancing, ‘in which it was exhilarating to see octogenarians of either class figuring in the dance with a grace and agility that astonished themselves and all who saw them.’