Walter de la Estcourt is the first recorded ancestor. He held lands in Shipton in 1317, and died about 1325. See Atkyns's Gloucestershire, 2nd ed. p. 340; Rudder, p. 654 and Lee's History of the Parish of Tetbury, p. 196.
Arms.—Ermine, on a chief indented gules three estoiles or, and so borne by William Estcourt, Warden of New College, Oxford, in 1426, as appears by his silver seal in the possession of Mr. Estcourt.
Present Representative, The Right Hon. Thomas H. S. Sotheron-Estcourt, late M.P. for North Wilts.
Leigh of Adlestrop, Baron Leigh of Stoneleigh 1839.
Descended from Agnes, daughter and heir of Richard de Legh, and her second husband William Venables, the common ancestress of the Leighs of West-Hall in High-Leigh. (See p. 22.) They had a son who took the name of Legh, and settled at Booths in Cheshire: from hence came the Leighs of Adlington, and from them the Leighs of Lyme, both in Cheshire, and both now extinct. John Leigh, Escheator of Cheshire in the 12th of Henry VI., was a younger son of Sir Peter Leigh, of Lyme, and the ancestor of the Leighs of Ridge, in the same county. Ridge was sold in the fourth of George II., and the family (still I believe existing) removed into Kent.
The present family are descended from Sir Thomas Leigh, Knight, Lord Mayor of London in 1558, who was also the ancestor of the extinct house of Stoneleigh. Sir Thomas was great-grandson of Sir Peter Leigh, Knight Banneret, who fell at Agincourt.
Younger Branches. Leigh of Middleton in Yorkshire, and Egginton in Derbyshire. See also Townley of Townley.
Extinct Branches. Leigh of Rushall, in Staffordshire; see Shaw's Staffordshire, ii. 69; of Brownsover, co. Warwick, Baronet; of Baguly, co. Chester; of Annesley, co. Notts; of Birch, co. Lancaster; of Stockwell, co. Surrey; and of Isall, co. Cumberland, &c.
So various indeed are the ramifications of the different branches of this wide-spreading family, that "as many Leighs as fleas" has grown into a proverb in Cheshire.