In common with many country houses after the First World War, it entered a period of institutional use in 1919 under Rev Harold Nelson Burden (1859–1930) as a psychiatric hospital but was subsequently restored.

The estate now offers office accommodation, conference and meeting rooms, and the house has a licence as a venue for civil wedding services.

The grounds were originally landscaped by Humphrey Repton; part of them is now within the Leigh Woods National Nature Reserve.

The manor of Leigh at the time of the Norman Conquest belonged to the lordship of Bedminster but William the Conqueror awarded it to the Bishop of Coutances.

His great-great-grandson, also George Norton (born 1622), unknowingly hosted Charles II, who arrived at the house the evening of 12 September 1651, during his escape to France following the Battle of Worcester.

A drawing made in 1788, only twenty years before it was pulled down, shows a main front of twelve gables, surmounting three storeys of cowled windows; a comfortable, solid west country Elizabethan house.

referred to as the Old Court House[12] After the Restoration, the King made George Norton a Knight; his widow set up an elaborate monument to him in the church at Abbot's Leigh.

William Trenchard of Cutteridge, Wiltshire, had married Ellen Norton, sister and coheir of Sir George.

[4] The mansion eventually housed a collection of over a hundred paintings representing many Old Masters – Domenichino (including the St John the Evangelist sold in 2009 for £9.2 million), Titian, Poussin, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rubens, Claude Lorrain (including the Altieri Claudes) and Van Dyke,[17] as well as numerous family portraits; however, the majority of the more famous paintings were sold between 1884 and 1898.

[21] Leigh Court continued to operate as part of the Stoke Park Hospital group until taken over by the National Health Service in 1948 but was subsequently restored.

[2] During the 1980s, Leigh Woods (surrounding the house) were used to film the TV series, Robin of Sherwood starring Michael Praed (later Jason Connery).

The house, built of Bath stone, has a hipped slate roof with a glazed and coffered area over its Great Hall.

[4] The mansion is entered from the south-east front through an Entrance Hall measuring about 30-foot (9.1 m) square, around which four pairs of massive marble pillars with Ionic capitals giving the impression of a circular room.

To the right of the Great Hall is the Library which is 55-foot (17 m) by 25-foot (7.6 m) and was fitted with bookcases on three sides to the full height of the room and has two mauve marble fireplaces and deep coved friezes and cornicing.

[4] The Great Hall which has a double staircase still contains an original pipe organ built by Flight and Robson of London.

[3] In 1974 the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food bought the woodland associated with the house and this is now Leigh Woods National Nature Reserve and includes the area known as Paradise Bottom.

[33] The current estate covers 128 hectares (320 acres) including lawns, woodland, flower gardens and a pond.