The area lies next to Baldslow, Ashdown, North and Conquest, and less than five miles southeast of Battle, East Sussex, the home of Battle Abbey, which commemorates the victory of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
It is a neo-classical building, originally constructed from locally quarried, red Collyhurst sandstone although, due to its soft nature, much of the original stone has since been replaced with sandstone of various colours from Parbold in Lancashire, Hollington in Staffordshire, Darley Dale in Derbyshire and Runcorn in Cheshire.
The land that is now St Leonards was once owned by the Levett family, an ancient Sussex gentry family of Norman origin who owned the adjacent manor of Hollington, and subsequently by their descendants, the Eversfields, who rose to prominence from their iron foundries and widespread property holdings during Tudor times.