Brewood, D Breude, " hill wood," was a Manor of the Bishops of Chester, with a Church and a resident priest, dating back to Saxon times. In the Parish were the Manors of Chillington, Coven, Engleton, Gunston, Hyde, Bromhall, Brinsford, Aspley, and Somerford. Brewood was once a royal forest, but it was disafiorested by King John, who visited Brewood in the years 1200, 1206, and 1207, and stayed at the Bishop's Manor House, which was probably close to the Church.

In the year 1221, through Bishop Cornhull, a market was granted to be held every Friday; and once there stood an old Market Cross in the Square that still bears the name of Market Square, which fell down in 1810. In the year 1256 Bishop Weseham retired from his See and lived in the Manor House, but died in the following year. At Black Ladies, in the Parish of Bishopswood, which was separated from Brewood and made a separate Parish in 1852, was a Benedictine Nunnery, dedicated to St. Mary, which may have owed its origin to one of the Bishops of Lichfield. It was founded before 1162, as Margery, one of the daughters of Sir Ralph de Coven, who married Henry de Parco, endowed it with an annual rent of i6d. on land in Horsebrook, The last Prioress was Isabella Launder, and at the Dissolution.

Sir Thomas Giffard bought the site, together with the Church, water mill, and a pasture, the annual value of which was estimated at £7 9s. id., for £134 is. 8d., and had to pay an annual rent of 15s. The house became a residence of that family till 1718.