Oakley Hall, Staffordshire

Oakley Hall is an early 18th century 14,929 sf mansion house at Oakley, Staffordshire, England, in the parish of Mucklestone, near the Shropshire town of Market Drayton. It is a Grade II* listed building. The Chetwode family who from about the 13th century owned the Chetwode Manor estate in Buckinghamshire also held the manor of Oakley. There was a substantial manor house at Oakley in the 16th century. In about 1710 Sir John Chetwode, Baronet, (High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1691 and 1698) replaced the old house with a two-storey mansion. The house is built of brick on a sandstone plinth with a balustraded entrance front of eleven bays, the central three of which were pedimented. Two sphinx-like statues with female heads flank the main entrance. The 1881 census discloses the 6th Baronet and his family in residence with a staff of fifteen servants. The Chetwodes sold the estate in 1919. It was already by then in the family of Cyril Charles Dennis, High Sheriff of Staffordshire (wife Mary Scott Dennis [nee Macfie], who kept 21 members of staff and was responsible for putting central heating throughout the hall. He had sons, both seriously injured before and during World War II: Ian and Lance (Spitfire V pilot) (grandsons: Honourable Professor Royal Biology Society Dr Roger L H Dennis [Internationally recognised butterfly biologist, and who saved a boy's life in the Teign estuar

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