Leigh was a part of the possessions that had been historically associated with Caus Castle with a part of that property, known as Leigh Hall, descending to John Corbet (d. 1759) of Sundorne. In 1763 the core of the present Leigh Manor estate was acquired by Robert, 1st Lord Clive (1725–1774) on behalf of his younger brother, William Clive (1745–1825), who settled it on his own son and namesake, William Clive (1795–1883), Archdeacon of Montgomery. The property was then still known as the Leigh Hall Estate, and to it was added, in 1883, the Lady House Farm. Leigh was bequeathed to his daughter, Mrs Marianne Caroline Bridgeman (d. 1930), wife of the Hon. and Rev. John Bridgeman (1831–1897), Rector of Weston-under-Lizard and the youngest son of the 2nd Earl of Bradford (1789–1865).

The Bridgemans’ son, William Clive Bridgeman (1864–1935) served Oswestry as MP from 1906–29 and had a series of significant government appointments, serving as Home Secretary 1922–4 and as First Lord of the Admiralty 1924–9. He was raised to the peerage as the 1st Viscount Bridgeman in 1929. Married in 1895 to Caroline Beatrix (d. 1961), elder daughter of the Hon. Cecil Thomas Parker – herself a Governor of the BBC 1935–9 and DBE (1924) – the couple was responsible for the building of the present house, after inheriting the estate on the Rev. Bridgeman’s death in 1897.

Designed by the Liverpool architect, H.L. Beckwith, the foundations were in place by May 1900 and the house arose in the following year. Built of red brick with stone dressings and mullioned and transomed windows, there are fine views from its lofty site. The entrance front faces north-west and bears the inscribed date of 1900 over the door. The main front, though, is the south-east facing garden front, which looks out over a yew-hedged formal garden to the wider landscape beyond. Here the elevation comprises a pair of two-storeyed polygonal bays with red-tiled pyramid roofs that are linked by a gabled central bay. An ancillary wing continues the composition to the north, culminating in a pair of gabled bays, and altogether creating an attractive asymmetrical composition.