[Illustration] 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.
See Ormerod's Cheshire, i. 350; iii. 333, 338, 374.
ARMS.--_Gules, a cross engrailed, and in the dexter point a fusil
argent_.
Present Representative, William Henry Leigh, 2nd Baron Leigh.