The Gethin Shilling

Leigh Court was called Lege in the Domesday Book. It records?"Turstin holds Lege, his father held it in King Edward's time and paid gheld for one hide . . . ." At the Conquest, the Manor was given to the Bishop of Contanus, after whose death William Rufus granted the Manor to Robert FitzHammon, whose daughter married Robert Earl of Gloucester. The Earl of Gloucester sold the Manor of Leigh to Robert FitzHarding, who in 1148 bestowed it to the Abbey of St. Augustine, which he had founded in Bristol. After the dissolution of the Monastery in 1583, it was passed to Paul Bush the first Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards by grant of the King to Sir George Norton. On 16th September, 1651 the Nortons gave shelter for four nights to King Charles II, after his defeat at Worcester. The property passed by marriage to the Trenchard family and it was purchased in the early 19th century by Mr. Philip John Miles who, between 1814 and 1816, built the Leigh Court of today. In January, 1884 the late King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, was entertained by the late Sir Philip Miles at Leigh Court. In 1917 Leigh Court was bought by the Rev. H. N. Burden to house mentally retarded patients?the function of which is preserved to date. (Jancar, 1969)