Stoneleigh Abbey

Charles I gave Leigh the barony for his offering hospitality when the gates of Coventry were closed to the king during the English Civil War.

Jane Austen writes of Repton as the gardener making changes to the grounds at the fictional Sotherton Court in Mansfield Park.

There were two small parterres in front of this side of the house where the grass is now, along with other features of the grounds that can be viewed by walking along the paths (wilderness, mill bridge, weirs, etc.)

William Henry Leigh's second son Edward Chandos was an avid cricket player, and was delighted when his father allowed the pitch to be built.

Victoria was given a suite of five rooms with mahogany furniture painted white and gold, since William Henry Leigh was told this was the Queen's preference.

[5] More than 1,000 tonnes of Grinshill stone were used to restore the exterior of the West Wing and up to 45 stonemasons were employed during the main stage of the work.

With the ties to Lord Leigh severed, the new charitable trust acquired a new chairman, local business man Tony Bird OBE.

In the early 2000s Charles Church built two groups of houses in the grounds of Stoneleigh Abbey, named The Cunnery and Grovehurst Park.

The repairs to the Pump House were partly funded by Natural England, including replacement of the roof, years of lime scale being chipped off, and the water wheel itself restored.

Stoneleigh Abbey Trustee Dorothy Ingle said: “It is wonderful to see the wheel turning and people being able to see how the pump house was used now fully restored to its former glory.

In 2016, Judy Stove, an Australian researcher into the life and times of Jane Austen, published a book (The Missing Monument Murders) which investigates a series of scandals at Stoneleigh Abbey in the first half of the nineteenth century.

[6] Stove examines court transcripts and newspaper accounts from the time, which named the bridge, designed by Scottish engineer John Rennie (1761–1821) and built over the River Avon west of Stoneleigh Abbey, as the possible site of the murder of the workmen.