This 15th-century manor served as the starting point for Jeffrey Epstein’s foray into elite British circles, facilitated by a wealthy arms merchant.

Located near Shakespeare’s region, South Wraxall Manor House is fabled to be where Sir Walter Raleigh first introduced tobacco to England.

However, it is now known that this stately home in Bradford-On-Avon was crucial in Epstein’s early connections with the British elite.

The country house belonged to international arms dealer Douglas Leese, who invited Jeffrey to stay for long weekends.

It’s claimed that Epstein’s friendship with the Leese family and his introduction to the Bullingdon Club social scene helped explain how he met socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

Now the so-called birthday book, released by a US congressional committee last week, has revealed the historic links between the Leese family and the now notorious sex offender during his rise to power.

The book also featured messages from Labour grandee Lord Mandelson, who was sacked last week as US ambassador after emails from him to the sex offender emerged.

In the birthday book from 2003, Douglas’s son Nick Leese penned a rather lurid tribute to Epstein for his 50th, when he referenced his stays at the country pile.

Mr Leese, who was a member of the notorious Bullingdon Club during his time at Oxford, even mentioned ‘massage classes at Wraxall.’

The note also described in vivid detail a wild night out when a woman was sexually assaulted in a car on the way to Tramps.

In the note, Mr Leese recounts an incident when his father and a man named as Toto both put their hands up the woman’s skirt while travelling to the famous club.

The note reads: ‘There was one evening which I recall always had you howling in laughter. We were in Harry’s Bar in London — you, me, the old man, Toto … and the usual extraordinary group of camp followers.

‘Somehow Toto got it into his head that [name redacted] was a call girl that Doggie had fixed up for him.

‘After dinner, we all went off to Tramps [sic] and Toto and Doggie got into the back of Doggie’s car with [name redacted] sitting between them.’

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Mr Leese told how the woman in question was his father’s mistress and framed it as a ‘drunken mistake.’

The paper reveals how it was Nick’s father, Douglas, who was impressed by the young American’s potential.

Julian Leese, speaking before his death last year, said: ‘Dad was enamoured with Jeffrey and Jeffrey was enamoured with Dad as a sort of mentor. 

‘You have to remember something about Jeffrey: in those days, he was 27, he was amazingly charismatic and great fun …

‘The whole family liked him and he would come down on many occasions to our family home in Wiltshire.’

Debt mogul and covicted fraudster Steven Hoffenberg, a one-time associate of Epstein, claimed he was introduced to him by Douglas Leese.

Hoffenberg claimed that Epstein was involved in the Towers Financial Corporation Ponzi scheme for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

If true, Hoffenberg’s claims might explain where Epstein’s fortune came from. The convicted fraudster began warning the world about Epstein after his release from prison.

Hoffenberg, who predated Madoff as America’s Ponzi king, said of Epstein: ‘He’s very easy to interact with, very social, very easy to bond with, an unusually nice person. 

And he’s pretty dynamic on financial savvy. He could move money in different areas to get the stock prices to go up and down.’

Epstein went on to work for Douglas, although the two men later fell out after it emerged the American had charged transatlantic flights on Concorde to his boss’s account.

During a House of Commons debate in 1996, George Galloway MP suggested that Douglas Leese profited from an arms deal between British Aerospace and the Saudi government.

He said: ‘Some of those secret commissions on the Al Yamamah deal have been handled by British Aerospace through a British businessman, Douglas Leese, who has close connections with an offshore bank, the Bank of NT Butterfield in Bermuda.

‘As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, a report by Sir John Bourn of the National Audit Office, which reveals some of those commissions, has been suppressed by the Select Committee on Public Accounts for more than three years. Public opinion is increasingly asking why.’

Founded by the Long family in the 1420s, the estate passed to the Longs of Rood Ashton following the death of Walter Long in 1807.

Douglas Sims Leese bought the house in the 1960s and the manor became his family home.

John Taylor of Duran Duran fame and his partner Gela Nash, who founded designer label Juicy Couture, snapped up the dreamy property around 20 years ago.

The Leese family’s friendship with Epstein took place decades before allegations about him emerged. He died aged 66 as he was awaiting trial for multiple sex offences.