Leighton Buzzard Prebendal House up to 1749

The Leighs had inherited the lease of the Prebendal estate on the death of John Leigh's father-in-law, Christopher Hoddesdon, in 1610.

The first detailed description of the Parsonage House on or near the site of the eighteenth century Prebendal House is in a lease of 1584. The property is described as the “Mansion House of the parsonage of Leighton Buzzard included the hall, the entry between the hall and the parlour, the buttery, the wool house, the wool house entry, the garner, the kitchen, the larder, the boulting house, the entry between the kitchen and the hall (the screens passage); three little houses adjoining the said entry, the steward's buttery, the Vergys house with lofts, chambers and lodges over them.” The “Kill House” and a house late part of the malt house adjoined. There was a little court near the churchyard and the great garden significantly commonly called, the “New Garden”.

A dispute in 1620 indicates that the house had become decayed but by 1647, after repair and/or a partial rebuild, it could be described as “all that faire Prebend House in Leighton built partlie of stone, partly Brick and partlie Tymber being in very good repaire. Consisting of a Hall Parlour with Drawing Room, Kitchen, Pantrey, Brewhouse, Wash house and Two Cellars, and Porters Lodge, nyne lodging chambers with Six Closetts with one garrett and gallery”. There is a garden adjoining on the south wall. What is described is a typical seventeenth century house or earlier.

At the Sir John Soane's Museum is a list entitled “A short Account of Mr. James Gibbs, Architect And of Several things he built in England & After his return from Italy”. It records that Gibbs “built the House of the Honourable Charles Leigh in Bedfordshire; a very convenient building”. Unfortunately, the author gives no date for this building and no accounts seem to have survived.

At least the document itself can be dated to 1709 or after, when Gibbs returned from Italy. The attribution to Gibbs is at least a possible one, as the Ashmolean Museum holds a plan of a temple identical to the surviving Temple of Diana, that formed part of the estate.

Charles Leigh (1685-1749) second surviving son of Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh, inherited the Prebendal estate from his uncle Charles in 1704.