Old farm which grew into a hotel
Geoff Taylor of Newport has chipped in with more information about the 1940s transformation of a Shropshire farm into a pub and hotel – a makeover which was performed by his father.
The other day we featured the memories and researches of 94-year-old Eric T Jones into Donnington Farm. Mr Jones, who now lives in Shrewsbury, lived in his childhood at Donnington, and recalled the people who had farmed there and how the farm was turned into a pub and hotel after the war.
It became the White House Hotel, and the location these days is generally given as Muxton.
That story prompted Mr Taylor, who is 79, to get in touch.
"My father altered it completely in about 1947 for Ansells Brewery. He was Tom Taylor, a builder from Lilleshall. It was a farmhouse when he started it and a pub and a hotel when he finished," he said.
His father's firm was Edward Thomas Taylor building contractor of Lilleshall.
"He died in 1951, not long after doing that job. My eldest brother had the company until the early 1960s and it then went to the wall.
"Myself and the other brothers started another company up, which we had until the early 1990s when I closed it down. It was the Mount Building Company of Lilleshall."
