St Leonards Hill

A Memory of Windsor.

Living approx, six miles from Windsor, one on a clear night could just see Windsor castle. I have been often told that Her Royal Majesty had her own country house where I lived and that on occasions she would reside there rather than in the Castle itself. Not too far away was where Billy Smart would have his circus animals roam wild in a huge enclosure. Again not too far from there from where Her Majesty had her house, there was a woodland and somewhere within the woodland was a clearing where upon a good clear night the guards at Windsor Castle would often see what appeared to be flaming torches forming a circle which would be approx, twenty yards or even more in diameter across, and on seeing these flaming torches circling in procession, the security would notify the police to investigate, one could not be too careful when it came to the Queen's well-being when she was within her country house. St Leonard's Hill was in the 1960s only tarmac some half mile up the road where the rest of the road was like a tank track with pot holes and deep puddles of water. Taxi drivers would refuse to venture up the road for fear of axle damage. It was up this road where the country house was. Police would come up St Leonard's Hill at breakneck speed into the wooded area to try and get to where the torches were seen. Each and every time they were called out to that area where the clearing was, there was never no sighting of anything. No matter on how they scoured the place, even with dogs nothing could be found; but yet no sooner had the police called off the search there would be a fresh sighting within the same area. It was well reported that it was believed that there was something occult going on there because there were reports of cats being slaughtered and hung upside down by their tails. St Leonard's Hill also had a mansion which had turned to ruin; it was after the Lord of the mansion had bought his daughter a frisky horse for her eighteenth birthday, whereupon the first day she got on its back it bolted down an avenue of trees. There was a low branch which had a fork within it where she was left behind, she was killed. After a few hours of finding the horse without a rider an all out search went on, and she was discovered within the fork of the tree. So distressed was her father that he ordered the horse to be put down and that the two should be buried within a grave not far from where she was found. A huge stone was placed over the grave. After the funeral the Lord had his servants go down into the cellar to prepare a banquet and on securing both outside door and the cellar door, he went mad as he poured paraffin oil down the stairs, setting fire to all those inside. He committed suicide. Many years later, having seen the location of the mansion some guy wanted to restore the place and having bought it he set two roof tilers to come and do the job of tiling. They had a hand cart which they used to transport their tools because the roadway was overgrown. One of the tilers scraping away some broken cement was suddenly approached by some guy demanding that he get off his property; the tiler replied if it was anyone who should get off the property it was the guy himself; it got into a little bit of an argument; when the tiler shouted down to his mate to come up and sort things out with this guy? What guy he said: on looking back where the guy was stood he had vanished; the tiler came down a little shook up on knowing that he had been speaking to some ghost. Having got his composure the two of them went onto the roof where then a few slates began to fly towards both of them; it was obvious that the old guy who was the ghost was throwing the tiles. They slid down the ladder, and not even grabbing hold of their handcart and tools rushed away, never to come back to get their tools.

The series Steptoe and Son, it was decided that there was going to be a film where the two of them were to see this mansion and to go and pinch lead off the roof. There was a problem for every time the camera man panned his camera around the area away from the mansion all could be seen on the film, but when it was panned towards the mansion: on developing the film at the studio the film suddenly went blank! It was thought that the film had somehow been damaged or some light had been exposed into the camera. so off they went to take other shots and also had a back-up camera that were to take the same scene at a different angle? As before the problem occurred, not with just one camera but both cameras. The panning away from the mansion was alright where everything was clear but as for the view of the mansion it was nothing but static noise. I have often walked around and within the ruins of the mansion and although I've been down in the cellar I never heard anything or saw anything, although I felt goosebumps. But I must admit I knew nothing of what I have just wrote until a few days or weeks later. If there is anyone around Windsor that lives on St Leonard's I'd like to know if that mansion was ever restored. I worked and lived on the pig farm which I believe is no longer there. If I have time I will fill in some more about a ghost-sighting of the young girl.