Squirrels Leap - a little history

The original main house, its grounds and the coach house

Squirrels Leap originally housed the coach and horses and the coachman for a large residence called The Pines, which was built in 1872. You can see the Coach house to the right of the main house in the photograph.  For years the house was in an isolated area of Fleet, with just some railway cottages for neighbours nearby.  During the first half of the 20th century, the developers moved into Fleet and slowly The Pines became more integrated.

In 1933, the then Queen Mary gave the money to buy The Pines and it was converted into a home for retired Army nursing sisters and renamed Queen Mary House. In a letter from a nephew of a resident, he recalls, as a youth visiting his Aunt, ....  "that the Queen sent Christmas presents to every one each year and visited as often as she could  .....I used to get bored though with the routine of visiting, leaving cards, cocktail parties, entertaining visitors.... but this was part of the life and regular routine of the house."

In 1959 developers bought the house, it was knocked down and new houses were built in the grounds.  The only remaining visible memories are some beech hedges and the new road that was built, called Queen Mary Close.

The Coach house part of Squirrels Leap

The Coach house survived the developers.  The photograph shows that part of Squirrels Leap which formed the original house.  The large double fronted entrance doors in the centre were the original doors to Queen Mary House.  The coach was stored to the right where the large windows are and the original archway across these windows can still be seen.  To the left of the front door were the stables and although this is now the main lounge, the original stable doors have been retained, complete with horse kicks !   The coachman's kitchen was at the far right with his bedroom over, and the remainder of the upper floor was the hayloft, part of which is now one of the guest suites.  

The whole house has now been sympathetically modernised and extended, with three double B&B rooms upstairs in the Coach House, and the Suite on the ground floor beneath the old gas lamp.  In the grounds, the original pump has been retained, but the well filled in, and at the bottom of the long garden stands an old potting shed, which surely could tell many tales !

Squirrels Leap has grown over the years and is now an impressive and comfortable B&B.