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Skilts was the Monastic Grange of Studley Priory and although much priory land was let from the house it remained with the Canons until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when Thomas Cromwell attempted to obtain the farm for a friend. The Prior, John Yardley, sent him the following letter:
"I have received your letter in favour of Francis Grant, servant to the Master of the Horse, for the farm of Skilts. Our Poorhouse is maintained by Husbandry and this farm is the chief of our domain and was never let from the house. If it be taken from us we cannot live. As the King is our Supreme Head and you, our visitor, we trust you will have pity upon us and not see our living diminished." - Stodeley 14th March 1535.
Here the Prior claimed that it was the husbandry of Skilts which maintained the Monastery. The name recorded as Skyllus is a family name but the association with land in Studley is not known.
The earliest reference seems to be when Thomas Atwode accused Thomas Bedull (the prior of Studley from 1450 to 1454) , "of keeping a Paramour" at Skyllus Grange viz; Joane wife to one John Greene by the connivance of her husband, to which Joane resorted in secular apparell, allowing her wheat, malt, wool and other things, whereby the Monastery was much impoverished.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the estate passed to Sir Edmund Knightley and was bequested by him to his niece Frances, who afterwards married James Duffield, who obtained a licence to sell Skilts to William Sheldon in 1560 and Sheldon obtained 2 Messuages, 600 acres of land, 60 acres of meadow, 600 acres of pasture, 120 acres of wood and 100 acres of Heath and Furze all of which he emparked for deer, and on the south side of it built a beautiful house of brick.
This William Sheldon of Beoley introduced the industry of tapestry weaving into England. The Red Brick Houae appears to be Lower Skilts House, built by Sheldon to replace the buildings of the Monastic Grange.
In 1945 the eastern half was still standing and is described in 'VictQria County History' but was demolished some years ago. The house extended along the southern side of a courtyard where brick foundations can still be traced. The northern side was walled with a gatehouse and 2 side buildings together with parts of an enclosing wall on the eastern side and a barn on the western side of the courtyard.
Today the remaining outbuildings at Lower Skilts are part of an egg-producing firm but a close examination shows the bricks to be of Tudor origin.