Early records indicate that the land of Woolton Hall had been occupied since 1180 when the area of Much Woolton (now called Woolton) came under the lordship of the holy Catholic order of the Knights Hospitaller who held the land for almost 360 years until the English Reformation. In the 16th century, Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries suppressed the Knights Hospitaller leading the land being confiscated and then further restored by Mary I. The land was permanently confiscated from the order in 1559 under Elizabeth I and was kept by the crown until 1609. Eventually the land came under ownership of the Brettarghs of Holt who was reputed to have acquired it from an ancient family named de Woolton.