During World War II, women evacuated from London gave birth here, thirty feet from where you are standing.
Last reviewed 12 September 2026 · A three-minute read · 4000 BC–2025
The short answer
Estelle Manor, in North Leigh, occupies Eynsham Hall, which served as a maternity hospital for women evacuated from London during the Blitz and as a rest center for American airmen, before becoming a police training college and, from 2023, a private members' club where Eve Jobs married Harry Charles in 2025.
Eynsham Hall near North Leigh — 1996 · Steve Daniels · CC BY-SA 2.0
1939 to 1945
Mothers fleeing the Blitz gave birth in a hunting lodge
Expectant mothers arrived here from London with the bombs still falling behind them. Eynsham Hall had become a maternity hospital, its Jacobean halls turned into wards. Women who had fled the Blitz gave birth under a roof built for shooting parties and weekend guests.
One of the babies born here was Anthony J. Batten, in 1940. He grew up to become a painter in Canada. His birthplace had been a country house a few years before. It would be a hospital ward for only a few years more.
The same building did double duty. American airmen came here too, sent to recover from the strain of flying missions over occupied Europe. The house earned a nickname among them: the "flak shack." The American Red Cross ran the program. The recovery on offer was small and ordinary — reading, bridge, snooker, table tennis. Men had spent their days dodging anti-aircraft fire. They spent their evenings at a card table in a room built for a Victorian industrialist's hunting weekends.
The war ended, but the house kept being repurposed. From 1946 the Home Office ran it as a police training center, drilling recruits where nurses had once counted contractions. That use lasted decades, long after the mothers and the airmen were gone.
Women in labor and airmen shaking off combat shared the same corridors.
2018 to now
Eve Jobs married Harry Charles behind the same gates
In 2018 the hotelier Sharan Pasricha bought the estate. It reopened in 2023 as Estelle Manor. This is a private members' club and hotel. It was built inside the same walls that once held maternity wards and airmen's card tables.
In July 2025, Eve Jobs married the showjumper Harry Charles here. Reports named Kamala Harris and Jennifer Gates among the guests at the reception. The mansion once sheltered mothers fleeing the Blitz. Now it shelters a different kind of privacy. It is for people who can afford to disappear behind its gates for a weekend.
7th century AD
Eight Saxon dead lay undiscovered for over a thousand years
Long before anyone built a hunting lodge on this ground, someone buried eight people near what is now Holly Court, off the Wilcote road. The burials, likely Saxon, came to light only in 1928, when workers turned them up not far from the estate. Archaeologists think the dead may have belonged to the same community that once lived at the nearby Shakenoak villa. The ground kept them for over a thousand years before anyone noticed.
100 AD to the 400s
A Roman courtyard house grew for three centuries nearby
Two miles off, an Iron Age farmstead once stood where Roman builders later raised North Leigh Roman Villa around 100 AD. It grew for three centuries into a sprawling courtyard house. Its floors had mosaics. Its rooms had underfloor heating. Families lived and rebuilt there for generations. They added wings as their fortunes changed. The house was abandoned sometime in the late 4th or early 5th century. Fire may have hastened its end.
mid-4th century AD
Someone hid forged coins inside a villa bathhouse
Inside that same villa, someone hid a bag of fake money. In a disused room of the north bath-house, archaeologists found a hoard of counterfeit Roman coins. They also found the tools used to strike them. Whoever hid the coins was likely running an illegal trade under the same roof where the household bathed. The hoard sat undisturbed for over sixteen hundred years, evidence of one person's quiet fear of getting caught.
A counterfeiter's coins waited in the dark far longer than his crime ever did.
1908 to now
A village football club has played here since 1908
Half a mile from the hall's front door, North Leigh F. C. has played on a pitch inside the estate's own parkland since 1908. The club has climbed through amateur leagues. It won regional cups. It was relegated more than once. All of this happened on the same patch of ground the hall has always overlooked. Long after the mansion changed hands and purpose again and again, this corner of its grounds kept a much simpler job. It was home ground for a village football team. The club set a new attendance record in 2022, when 525 people turned out for a friendly against Oxford United.
The hall's gates now open for guests instead of patients or recruits, but the ground under them has never once stood empty.
Read the ground you are standing on
Every person, building and event in this story opens into its own dig in the app — and Strata will dig the ground under your feet instead, wherever that is, in about a minute, with every source shown.
North Leigh Roman Villa grew from an Iron Age settlement into a large courtyard house with mosaics and heated floors, occupied from around 100 AD until it may have burned in the 4th or 5th century.
In July 2025 Estelle Manor hosted the wedding reception of Eve Jobs and Olympic showjumper Harry Charles, reportedly attended by Kamala Harris and Jennifer Gates.
What happened at Estelle Manor during World War II?
Eynsham Hall, now Estelle Manor, served as a maternity hospital for women evacuated from London during the Blitz, and later as a rest center nicknamed the 'flak shack' where American airmen recovered between bombing missions.
What was here before Estelle Manor?
The current Jacobean-revival mansion was rebuilt in 1908 by architect Ernest George from an earlier country house dating to the 1770s, known as Eynsham Hall.
Who was born at Eynsham Hall during the war?
Anthony J. Batten was born there in 1940 while the hall operated as a maternity hospital; he later became a painter in Canada.
What happened to Eynsham Hall after the war?
From 1946 the Home Office used it as a police training center, a role it kept for decades before its 2018 purchase by Sharan Pasricha and 2023 reopening as Estelle Manor.
What was found near North Leigh before the Roman villa?
Eight Saxon burials, likely from the 7th century, were uncovered in 1928 near Holly Court, and a Neolithic burial was found along Green Lane, while an Iron Age fort once stood at Eynsham Park Camp.
What is North Leigh Roman Villa?
It was a large Roman courtyard house with mosaics and underfloor heating, grown from an Iron Age farmstead around 100 AD and occupied until it may have burned in the 4th or 5th century; a hoard of counterfeit coins and the tools to strike them was later found hidden in its bathhouse.
