A MEMBER of the Rothschild banking family, who chaired one of the south’s most popular visitor attractions has died aged 84.

Leopold de Rothschild, the fourth and youngest child of Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, was born in London in 1927 but was brought up mostly at Exbury House in the New Forest.

His father, who established the English branch of the family, acquired the estate in 1918 and created a 250-acre woodland garden, famed for its rhododendrons.

One of Leo’s earliest memories was a visit from King George V and Queen Mary in 1931, where he bowed to so many people that His Majesty told him to stop in case he was sick. His French-born mother, Marie-Louise Beer, brought out Leo’s musical side and in later life he gave small house concerts with his friends and family at Exbury.

Leo was evacuated to North America for three years during the Second World War, then returned to England in 1943 and was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He joined the family bank NM Rothschild & Sons, becoming partner in 1956 and an executive director in 1970.

Leo was heavily involved in establishing the bank’s Latin American offices and Rothschild Intercontinental Bank in 1969.

From 1970 to 1983 he sat as a director on the Court of the Bank of England.

A great fan of steam trains, Leo had a modern country house designed and built like a narrow-gauge steam railway. More than 500,000 people have ridden on it since it opened in 2001. The Queen rode on the footplate in 2004 while Leo drove in his Exbury Gardens Railway boiler suit and cap.