The Acton family was said to have been seated at Aldenham from the fourteenth century and branches of the family became established elsewhere in the county at Longnor, Gatacre Park and at Dunval (q.v.). Nineteenth-century marriages, though, brought territorial possessions in Europe and in Italy, and the establishment of overseas branches of the family.

Of what might be considered their stem seat at Aldenham, the earliest known view of the house is a view that is based on a plan of 1625, but which was painted in 1756 and might conceivably be the work of the artist Thomas Robins. In this, a twin-towered gatehouse, with arch-set gable, stands before the house across a garden, and the great hall can be determined, surmounted by a cupola, to the top right. The present north and west fronts of the house, which retain mullioned windows, might have formed a part of this earlier structure.

Walter Acton, who served as Sheriff of Shropshire in 1630, married his cousin Frances Acton, the heiress of Acton Scott, in circa 1598. Their son, Edward (1600–1659) – a staunch Royalist – was created a baronet by Charles I in 1643, although in the Commonwealth, ‘Edward Ashton [sic] of Aldenham Esq.’ was compounded for his loyalty to the sum of £2000. Acton had married Sarah Mytton of Halston (q.v.), the daughter of a house where her brother was a Parliamentarian.

The Acton’s son, the eventual Sir Walter Acton 2nd Bt (d. 1665), married Catherine, the daughter of Richard Cressett of neighbouring Upton Cressett Hall (q.v.). Although the marriage was a local one, their progeny were distinctly more metropolitan in outlook and, of the seven sons – all of remarkable stature at over six feet in height – and three daughters, almost all made careers or marriages with strong London business links.