Sandleford

Sandleford
Sandleford  Sandleford shown within Berkshire
OS grid reference	SU474643
Metropolitan borough	West Berkshire
Metropolitan county	Berkshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	NEWBURY
Postcode district	RG20
Dialling code	01635
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Royal Berkshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Newbury
List of places UK England Berkshire

Sandleford is a hamlet and former parish in the English county of Berkshire. The settlement is now within the civil parish of Greenham, and is located approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) south of the town of Newbury. It measures about 520 acres, most of which is taken up with the fields and copses to the west of the Priory. A census taken in 1801 showed Sandleford to have three houses, three families and 18 people. At the same time Newbury comprised 931 houses, 34 empty houses, 971 families and 4275 people. John Marius Wilson in his Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales, 1870-72, gave Sandleford as having Real property £775; of which £10 are in fisheries, and a population of 49 in nine houses, but in 1881 the population of Sandleford had shrunk to 34. In 1615 it was separated from the manor and parish of Newbury, and the adjacent Wash Common and became extra-parochial, as described by Sir Francis More, Kt, of Fawley, it was to be: no part of the Parish of Newbury, nor to be so reputed. At some point after 1924 it was subsumed into the parish of Greenham.

In August 23 1759 the Rector of Newbury, Rev. Thomas Penrose (died 1769), father of the poet Thomas Penrose, in answer to some set questions about Newbury, and to question number five in particular which concerned 'seats of gentry' in the town, wrote this: [Newbury has] No seat of gentry; if you except Sandleford, which is an estate held of the church of Windsor, and which is often considered as extra-parochial, but which pays a composition in lieu of tithes to the rector of Newbury. It is situated to the south of Newbury. The present lessee is Edward Montagu, Esq.; Member of Parliament for the town of Huntingdon.

Notable buildings

Sandleford Priory

The remains of Sandleford Priory (1200 – 1478) are incorporated into St Gabriel's School.

Sandleford was a priory of Austin canons, founded between 1193 and 1202 by Geoffrey, 4th count of Perch, and Richenza-Matilda his wife. A confirmation charter from Archbishop Stephen indicates the priory was dedicated to St John the Baptist and endowed with all the lands of Sandleford.. The appropriation of the priory to the Dean and Canons of Windsor was mainly owing to Bishop Beauchamp of Salisbury, who was dean of Windsor from 1478 to 1481. By this time it appears the religious had forsaken the priory.

On 9 March 1478, Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury and Dean of Windsor, surrendered to the Dean and Canons of Windsor, all the lands, tenements, manors, etc, in Berkshire, formerly belonging to the Prior and Convent of St John the Baptist, Sandleford.

The priory had been richly endowed with properties over a number of years and those which came into the possession of the Dean and Canons included the following: Lands in Bramley, Chiddingfold, and Hambledon, Surrey; the manor of East Enborne, Berkshire; lands in Freefolk, Whitchurch, Hampshire; lands in Kingsclere, Hampshire; lands in Newbury, Berkshire; lands in Newtown, Hampshire; lands in Pamber, Hampshire; the manor of Roke, Odiham, Hampshire; and the rectory of West Ilsley, Berkshire.

Sandleford Cottage/Lodge/Place

On the southern boundary, by the River Enborne, on the Berkshire and Hampshire, and Sandleford and Newtown border.

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  Edward Haytley's portrait, The Montagu Family at Sandleford Priory, circa 1744.

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  Sandleford Priory from the west, from the drive that connected the priory to the Andover road (A343), as seen between Dirty Ground Copse and Gorse Covert.

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  Sandleford Cottage, former home of Seton Montolieu Montgomerie and her daughters Viva and Alswen.

Literature

The original home of the rabbits in Richard Adams' novel Watership Down was at Sandleford.

Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, the distinguished blue-stocking, who lived at Sandleford from 1742 until her death in 1800 writes from and mentions Sandleford in dozens of her of letters.

Notable people associated with Sandleford

• Inclusa of Sandraford, as mentioned in a pipe roll of 26 Henry II, 1179-80. Otherwise known as an anchoress, a female Anchorite, a withdrawn holy person;

Geoffrey and Matilda

• Anglo-French magnate and veteran of the Third Crusade Geoffrey (died 1202, buried St. Denis, Nogent-le-Rotrou), Earl of Perche and Mortagne, of the House of Châteaudun, Lord of the manor of Newbury, and his wife (they married in 1189) Richenza-Matilda of Saxony (1172-1209/10), daughter of Henry the Lion, duke of Bavaria and duke of Saxony, (died 1195) by Matilda (or Maud) of England (died 1189). Matilda, countess de Perche, was a legitimate granddaughter of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitane, a great-granddaughter of Empress Matilda, and was niece of both King Richard the Lion heart and Bad King John, and of Queen Eleanor of Castille. The Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV was one of Matilda's brothers. In 1204, two years after count Geoffrey's death, Richenza-Matilda married Enguerrand III, Lord of Coucy (c.1182–1242), Enguerrand le Grand, of Picardy.

Matilda and Geoffrey III, fourth Count of Perche, founded Sandleford Priory between 1193 and 1200. In addition to the freehold of the site and 600 or so acres, all the lands at Sandleford, as it is bound by hedges and ditches, with all its appurtenances, an annuity of 13 marks from the mills of Newbury was allocated for the support of the house.

Geoffrey's grandfather the great Rotrou III, Count of Perche (1084-1144) married (1136) Hawise (Harwise or Hedwig) d'Evereux (1118-1152), daughter of Walter (d'Evereux) of Salisbury by Sibyl de Chaworth (de Chaources, alias Mundublel, alias de Cadurcis). Sibyl's parents who married in 1118 were Maud/Matilda de Hesdin and Patrick de Chaources. Sibyl was thus a granddaughter of the modern era founder of Newbury the Lord of Ulvritone, Ernulf de Hesdin (died Antioch, 1097). Hawise was an elder sister of Patrick of Salisbury, 1st Earl of Salisbury (c. 1122 – 1168) and of Sibyl Marshal.

Hawise and Rotrou III's son, Count Geoffrey's father, Rotrou IV, count of Perche and Mortagne, was slain during the Third Crusade the at Siege of Acre (1189–91), having married Matilda (died 1184) daughter of Theobald IV.

Hawise's younger sister Sibyl (1120-) married John Marshal (Marshal of England), and their sons John the Marshall, William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and Henry Marshall (bishop of Exeter) (died 1206) were thus Geoffrey's first cousins-once-removed. After Count Thomas Perche's death, at the Battle of Lincoln leading the forces of the Capetain Prince Louis against King John and his noble cousin William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (died 1219) in 1217, his noble kinswoman, a second cousin once removed, Ella or Ela of Salisbury, 3rd Countess of Salisbury, daughter of William of Salisbury, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, and wife of William Longespée (Longspey), 3rd Earl of Salisbury claimed some of his property, including Newbury. William Longspey, Lord Salisbury, was uncle of Henry III.

The connection of John le Marshal (died 1194) and his younger brother William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (died 1219), of Newbury Castle, Hamstead Marshall to Sandleford also shown by the former's mistress Alice de Colville (died before 1220?) of Maidencourt, East Garston giving six quarters of wheat (28 pounds x 6 = 168 pounds = 12 stone) from Maidencourt to the Priory of Sandleford for praying for their souls.

• Geoffrey's uncle Stephen du Perche (1137/8–1169), had been Archbishop of Palermo, and his brother Stephen was killed at siege and Battle of Adrianople in 1205, while two other brothers, Rotrou (bishop 1190-1200) and William (died 1226), were both sometime bishops of Châlons.

In 1195 Geoffrey was described by the chronicler as a man whose soul was naturally grand and magnanimous [whose] sole happiness was to consecrate his fortune in fostering religion and relieving suffering humanity [in conjunction with] his noble and pious wife Matilda.

• Archbishop (and Cardinal) Stephen (Langton) (c.1150-1228) (Archbishop of Canterbury, 1207-1228), in its confirmation charter stated that the house was dedicated to the honour of St. John Baptist (and the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Saints). The original seals on the charter featured those of the Archbishop of Canterbury Hubert Walter, the Bishop of Sarum Herbert le Poer (Poore), William of Perche (died 1226) bishop of Châlons, and Stephen of Perche (killed in 1205);
• Despite the royal status of the widow Countess Matilda, her uncle King John, around 1204, soon after death of the Count Geoffrey Rotrou of Perche in 1202 (Geoffrey had he not died would have taken part in the Fourth Crusade, started to repossess and reassign the lands of the Perche in England. Dr. Kathleen Thompson says (2013): However, the king went to some lengths to preserve the Rotrou family association with the lands. He guaranteed two pensions which Count Geoffrey had granted from the revenues of Newbury, ordering that Simon of Pattishall was to be reimbursed for their continued payment, and instructed Simon to honour Count Geoffrey's grant of a rent from the mill at Newbury to the canons of Sandleford.
• Canons Regular;
• Maud de Clare, (1223-1289), was daughter of John de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln, and the wife of Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford, 6th Earl of Gloucester, conceived at Sandleford, with help of a Papal mandate dated 1274, an Augustinian convent for 40 nuns and for 10 priests of the order of Fontevraud Abbey; Her husband was a grandson of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.

Robin Hood

• Robin Hood, William Robehod, and or aka Robert le Fevre, from Enborne in Berkshire. Hood was indicted for various things, 1261–62, took flight, outlawed, and his chattels taken without warrant by the prior of Sandleford. Easter 1262 the prior was excused a fine by the king for having confiscated Hood's chattels.

Richard Beauchamp

• Richard Beauchamp (died 1481), Bishop of Salisbury (1450-1481) and Dean of Windsor (1478–81), first Chancellor of the Order of the Garter. He gave, in coordination with Kind Edward IV, the by then abandoned, in religious terms, priory to the Dean and Canons of Windsor, on 9 March 1478;

Dean and Canons of Windsor

• Dean and Canons of Windsor, aka, the Dean and Canons of the King's free chapel of St. George the Martyr within his castle at Windsor. Freeholders of Sandleford from 1478-1875;
• Lease dated, 15 March 1624: Sir Henry Moore, of South Fawley, Bt., bought a baronetcy in 1626; son of the barrister (see above, the man who secured Sandleford's independence from Newbury in 1615) Sir Francis Moore, Kt. (1559-1621), (MP (Reading), JP, steward of Newbury 1619, and solicitor to Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland);

Kingsmill family

• Lease dated, 20 November 1626: Sir Henry Colt (died 1635), of Colts hall or Greys in Cavendish, Suffolk; married (1614) Bridget, daughter of Sir William Kingsmill (died 1618), knighted (May 1603), of nearby Sydmonton Court, Hampshire, where on 18 and 19 August 1603 Sir William entertained King James and his Queen;
• Before 1668, Sir Humphrey Forster (died 1663), of Aldermaston Court, sheriff of Berkshire 1619-20; created a baronet in 1620; married (circa 1615/16) Anne (died 1673), daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, kt. (died 1618) of Sydmonton;
• Lease dated, 6 May 1668: John Kingsmill, JP (Newbury, 1685), (died 1687), educated Trinity College, Oxford, the third son of Sir Henry Kingsmill (1587-1624/5), kt. (1610), of Sydmonton, by Bridget White (d.1672), of Southwick. They married 20 December 1610. His mother was for over a decade a close friend of the poet John Donne (1572-1631), and John thus may have been named after the poet.

John Kingsmill was husband to Rachael Pitt (died 1690), the second daughter of Edward Pitt the eldest son of Sir William Pitt (1559-1636), MP, kt. 1618, Comptroller of the Household. Edward Pitt (1592-1643), MP (Poole), of Steepleton Iwerne, near Blandford Forum, Dorset and later of Stratfield Saye, Hampshire, which he bought for £4,800 in 1629, had married Rachael (d. 1643) daughter of Sir George Morton, Bart. in 1620.

Their sons Robert and Henry Kingsmill died without issue in 1697 and between 9 July 1715 and 4 June 1717, not before Henry Kingsmill of Sandleford was High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1706-1707.George Pitt the brother of Rachel Pitt, Mrs John Kingsmill, married Jane, the daughter of John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers. John Kingsmill's sister Bridget (1622-c.1700) was wife to Richard Gorges (c.1619-1712), Lord Gorges of Dundalk, MP for Newton (1661), of Stetchworth, Cambridgeshire.

Meanwhile, the poetess and Maid of Honor to Queen Mary, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, (1661-1720), daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, kt., (1613-1661) of Sydmonton Court, was one of John Kingsmill's nieces and a first cousin of his sons Robert and Henry;

• In the early eighteenth century the Pitt family of Strathfield-Saye were thought by the Lysons and Emily Climenson to have been lessees, possibly during the minority of the sons of Rachel Pitt (died 1690), aka Mrs John Kingsmill.

William Cradock

• William Cradock (died 1736) of Gilling, Hartforth (from 1730) and Gainford Hall, Gainford, County Durham. In 1715 he married Mary daughter of Gilbert Sheldon, of St Andrew's, Holborn. Their daughter Mary married Gilbert Jodrell (died 1745), and in turn their daughter Sarah married Robert Child of Osterley Park;

Montagu family and associates

• Edward Montagu (1692–1776), FRS (elected 1745), of Allerthorpe, Yorkshire, a distinguished mathematician, was MP for Huntingdon 1734-1768, son of the Hon. Charles Montagu (c. 1658-1721), MP for Durham, and grandson of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich. He inherited in 1758, on the death of his lunatic first cousin, John Rogers (1685-1758), the coal-mines of the Denton Hall estate, East Denton, Newcastle, Northumberland, which had been bought by their grandfather in 1689 and 1705; he was the leaseholder of the Sandleford estate from 1730. Sandleford had been in possession of the first cousin (Rachael Pitt, Mrs. John Kingsmill, of Sandleford) of his first cousin, Sir Edward Wortley-Montagu (1678 –1761), the father of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Sandleford belonged to the Dean and Canons of Windsor, Robert Freind (1667-1751), a Canon of Windsor, the Canon of the Second Stall, from 29 April 1729 to 1737, was father of William Freind (c.1715-1766) whose wife Grace Robinson (1718-1766) was sister and co-heir of Edward's wife's cousin, Richard Robinson, 1st Baron Rokeby. Meanwhile, Sir Sidney Meadows (1701-1792), Kt., MP, of Conholt, Chute, Andover, was a brother-in-law having married his sister Jemima in 1742;

Elizabeth Montagu by Wilson Lowry (1762-1824) engraving published London, April 1787.

• Mrs. Montagu (from 5 August 1742), aka Elizabeth Robinson, the blue-stocking, Edward Montagu's wife and then widow. Sister of Matthew (Matt) Robinson, FRS (elected 1746), MP (for Canterbury 1747-1761), Sarah Scott (1720-1795), Charles, MP (for Canterbury 1780-1790) and Rev. William Robinson (1727-1803) who was rector of Denton, 1764-1785, and of nearby Burghfield, 1767-1800, when succeeded by his son Rev. Matthew Robinson (died 1827). Sir Thomas Robinson, 1st Baronet was a kinsman. Rev. Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) married one of her first cousins. Her heir was her nephew, Matthew Montagu, FRS, MP, who succeeded to her estates in Yorkshire and Northumberland, and to Sandleford, in 1800, though he had already been living with her and there for years;

In a letter to one of her brothers, dated Sandleford, June 9, 1777, Mrs Montagu wrote about her agricultural relationship with Sandleford.

• Robert Adam, employed by Mrs Montagu in 1765 at Sandleford;
• Hannah More (1745-1833), friend of Mrs. Montagu;
• Elizabeth Vesey (1715-1791), friend and adviser of Mrs. Montagu;
• Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland (1715-1785), of Bulstrode Park, friend of Mrs. Montagu;
• William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath;
• Dr. Beattie, (James Beattie the poet), stayed at Sandleford with his son in July 1791;
• George Harcourt, 2nd Earl Harcourt (1736–1809), of Nuneham House, friend and garden adviser to Mrs. Montagu;
• Mary Delany, aka Mrs. Pendarves, (1700-1788), friend of Mrs. Montagu;

Lancelot ('Capability') Brown, by Nathaniel Dance. Brown worked on the extensive park and on a smaller scale around the priory, c. 1780.

• Lancelot Brown (1716–83), Capability Brown, provided plans for the park and garden in 1781;
• John Spyers (Spyres, Spiers, Spires), (c1720-1798), nurseryman and draftsman, Mr. Brown's surveyor;
• James Wyatt, architect;
• Joseph Bonomi the Elder, architect;
• Samuel Lapidge, took over from Brown in the park and garden. Father of Edward Lapidge;
• William Emes, also took over garden landscaping after Brown's death;

Mary Morgan's description

Mary Morgan (died 11 July 1808, aged 59), one of the two daughters of the Ipswich composer Joseph Gibbs (died 1788), and wife to Rev. Caesar Morgan, DD, (died 1812, aged 62), vicar of Wisbech and then Rector of St James' Church, Stretham, Cambridgeshire and (from 1804) a Prebendary of Ely, in her A Tour to Milford Haven, in the year 1791 published in 1795, wrote (Letter V, To Miss B _ _ _ _ , Burfield [ Burghfield ], July 13th, 1791):

...I felt myself sufficiently gratified, that a great portion of genius is possessed by my sex; I was entirely devoid of dread or envy. After driving twenty miles through a very pleasant country, and through the pretty town of Newbury, we entered Mrs. Montagu's park, which seemed to have undergone some recent improvements, as the trees were many of them newly planted. The approach to the house is a fine lawn, with sheep feeding upon it. This gives you the idea of beauty blended with utility, which always produces agreeable sensations in the mind...

...In this wing is an elegant dressing-room above stairs. This too has a large bow, on the outside of which there is a very spacious balcony, surrounded by iron balustrades. The balcony commands a distant view of the Hampshire hills, and an extensive diversified country. The small village of Newton in the Valley has an humble simplicity in it, that is agreeably contrasted with the lofty hills beyond it...

...When we withdrew to go to bed, we were ushered up stairs by the major domo, with a wax light in each hand. I found the bedroom lighted up, and a female waiting in it ready to undress me. Mrs M.-- was not conducted into my room, but into a dressing-room adjoining, by a door that opened into a passage. Reflecting on this, to me unusual ceremony, I almost began to fancy myself a bride again; or else, that I was transported into some fairy region, where I was to be waited upon by spirits, that were every where attending without being called for...

...In the dressing-room there was a collection of books; amongst them I found your friend Miss Cornelia Knight's Dinarbas. Here you may amuse yourself in the morning, if you please, till dinner calls you again to society.

The grounds are laid out with the same Attic taste, as the house. Through a great part of them Mrs. Montagu has trained a river, which was little more than a ditch; and means to extend it still further... she has likewise cut a winding path through her plantations. It is a carriage way and is a mile in length. It is also a very pleasant walk, and may serve; 'or for study, or for love' being perfectly secluded. At agreeable distances are benches under the shadow of a large tree, or the shelter of a close hedge interwoven with woodbines and honeysuckles.

When walking in the grounds, I observed an extraordinary degree of cleanliness and decency in the men, who were at work in them. Upon enquiry I found they were all fed and cloathed by her hand. I perceived too that many of them had some great defect, occasioned by age, natural infirmity, or misfortune, being either blind, deaf, dumb, or lame; yet she so paired them, and fitted their employments to their several faculties, that the remaining senses of one served to supply the deficiencies of the other. By this stroke of benevolent ingenuity, though she does not get so much work done, as she would by stronger and abler men; she has the heart-felt satisfaction of making those useful and happy members of society, whom nobody else would employ, and who, but for her, must be dependent upon a parish for an idle and scanty substance. I hope it is not prophane to say, she has made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk. The whole of this place suggested to me the idea of a Roman villa. There is every thing for use as well as beauty. The farm and dairy are not omitted; they supply the family and table with all things necessary and delicate. In short, there is a style in every part of it, that bespeaks a superior degree of judgment. Nothing is gaudy or superfluous, yet nothing is wanting. Native genius, matured by observation upon what is simply elegant, has guided the hand of the amiable possessor of this enchanting place... Adieu.

A few days later she continued: (To Miss B., Letter IX, Woodstock, 16 July 1791): Having before described Sandleford to you, I cannot help observing, that it is a striking contrast to Blenheim. But it is such a one, as when the eye, dazzled with gazing at the sun, falls on the soft green of a beautiful lawn, upon which it may rest for ever without satiety or weariness. At Sandleford the mind is gratified with everything that can render life rational and happy. At Blenheim it is fatigued with contemplating objects, that seem like a golden dream, too gay and too gaudy to be real.

Morgan's list of subscribers shows that Elizabeth Montagu, aka Montagu, Mrs. Portman Square-10 copies., and her nephew (the son of Rev. William Robinson, rector of Burghfield), aka Robinson, Rev. Mr. Rector of Coveney, in the Isle of Ely-6 copies., evidently appreciated this ebullient description.

Matthew Montagu, William Wilberforce, and Sandleford

A view south across Newtown from Sandleford by George Arnald (1763-1841), Wood gatherers, with Highclere Castle, and Beacon and Siddon hills in the distance, 1805.

• Matthew Montagu (previously Robinson) (1762-1831), MP, FRS (elected 1795), 4th Baron Rokeby, in the peerage of Ireland, from 1829. He was Mrs. Montagu's favoured nephew, under whose wish he took the name of Montagu in 1776, and son of Morris Robinson of the Six Clerks' Office, Chancery Lane, London. Wraxall in his Memoir described Montagu's upbringing by his aunt: At her feet he was brought up, a school more adapted to form a man of taste and improvement than a statesman or a man of the world. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, he married Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Francis Charlton of Kent in 1785 by whom he had six sons and seven daughters. A 'faithful follower of Pitt', he was MP for Bossiney 1786-1790, for Tregony 1790-1796, and for St. Germans 1806-1812; Major commandant Newbury voluntary infantry 1803, lt.-col. commandant. 1803. In addition to holding the lease of Sandleford he bought land in the adjacent manor of Peckmore, (next to Greenham), a name a mix of Perche and moor; Matthew Robinson may have been influenced by or even employed Humphrey Repton at Sandleford as a result of having seen what he had done for the father of his patron at St. Germans, Lord Eliot of Port Eliot, in 1792-93 and 1802.

Montagu was a friend and supporter of William Wilberforce, and thus favoured the abolition of the slave trade. Wilberforce, stayed at Sandleford, 27–28 July 1789:

27th. Set off for Bath and reached Sandleford. The old lady [Elizabeth Montagu] wonderfully spirited, are all very kind in their reception. 28th. Almost compelled to stay with the Montagus all day. Mrs. Montagu senior has many fine, and great, and amiable qualities. Young Montagu all gratitude and respect and affection to her and of most upright and pure intentions.

Wilberforce was at Sandleford one night in July 1791:

Monday 28 July. Off betimes on Sierra Leone business-reached Sandleford (M. Montagu's) in the evening. Dr. Beattie was already arrived.

Chatteris and beyond

William Pollett Brown Chatteris by Simon Jacques Rochard (1788-1872), 1842.

A hand scrivened and illuminated vellum detail of the Chatteris coat of arms on the grant of arms dated 30th May 1829, to William Pollett Brown Chatteris.

• William Pollet Brown Chatteris (1810-1889), JP, DL (1852, Berks), educated at Eton and Brasenose college, Oxford, and son of a City of London banker, William Chatteris (died 1812) of Lombard street, who eventually bought the freehold, enfranchised the estate, from the Dean and Canons of Windsor in 1875. His sister Eliza (died 1866) had married Edmund Arbuthnot (1793-1873) of Newtown in 1824, Sandlefords's closest village, which would have been Chatteris' introduction to the area as he took on the lease of Sandleford in 1835. His first wife (married 1833) was Anne (died 1848) eldest daughter of Rt Rev Alexander Arbuthnot, DD, Bishop of Killaloe (1768-1828), and his brother-law Edmund's first cousin. He planted a world-class azalea and rhododendron garden. He died at Sandleford Priory leaving £155,141, his executors were his former half-brother-in-law Sir Charles George Arbuthnot, GCB, (1824 –1899), and the Rev. Frances Charles Gosling, vicar in charge of Newtown, 1859-1900. Another half-brother-in-law Sir Alexander John Arbuthnot, KCSI CIE (1822-1907) lived at nearby Newtown house;
• Alpin Macgregor (1846-1899 at Frensham, unmarried), Gentleman Usher to HM Queen Victoria, fourth son of Sir John Atholl Macgregor, 3rd bart., (1810-1851), lt-gov. of the Virgin Islands, by Mary Charlotte Hardy (d.1896), and thus nephew of Chatteris' second wife, Emily Georgina, daughter and heir of Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, Bt., GCB, Nelson's Hardy;

File:Azaleas and rhododendrons planted near Sandleford priory by William Chatteris, as seen circa 1906.jpg

Azaleas and rhododendrons planted near the priory by William Chatteris, as seen circa 1906.

Agatha Lillian Thynne, in The Tatler, no. 138, February 17, 1904.

• Miss Agatha Lilian Thynne (died 1962), Alpin Macgregor's niece, (and descended from Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath), was wife of the 3rd Baron Hindlip, and is hence a great-grandmother of Kirstie Allsopp. Her mother Mary Elizabeth Murray Macgregor (died 1934) and father John Charles Thynne (1838-1918), sometime receiver general to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster (1865-1902), were living at Sandleford Cottage in 1907, (they had married in Westminster Abbey on Abbey on 25 April 1871). Her sister Joan E. M. (1872-1945) was the mother of John Campbell, 5th Earl Cawdor.
• Mrs. Myers, aka Evelyn Elizabeth Myers, who wrote A History of Sandleford Priory, with plates, Newbury District Field Club, Special Publication. no. 1, published between 1900-1931, was tenant from before 1898 to at least 1911.
• Major Aubrey Isaac Rothwell Butler, (1878-1930), son of Isaac Butler (1839-1917), JP (Sheriff of Monmouth 1910), of Panteg House, Griffithstown, Torfaen, near Newport. It is claimed that the first sheet steel in Britain was rolled in Staffordshire in 1876 from a bloom made in Panteg by Isaac Butler. Aubrey Butler was sometime manager of Baldwin's Ltd branches in Monmouth & Midlands, Baldwins having taken over the family firm, Wright, Butler and Co Ltd, in 1902. Later he was Sheriff of Monmouthshire, 1924, and by the time of his early death was described as formerly of Sandleford Priory and of 13, Porchester Terrace, London.
• Lady Mary Florence Holt (1877-1957), daughter of the 12th Earl of Meath, by Lady Mary Jane Maitland, daughter of 11th Earl of Lauderdale, and wife (from 4 June 1904) to Lt.Col. Harold Edward Sherwin Holt (1862-1932), TD, CBE, MIEE, FRGS, MA; educated at Eton and Magdalen college, Oxford; a mechanical and electrical engineer and inventor; sometime director of Daimler; Lord of the manor of Farnborough; of Ogbeare Hall, North Tamerton, Devon and Hornacott Manor, Boyton, Launceston, Cornwall; and founder member of the RAC and the Society for Psychical Research; hon. lieutenant-colonel in RAF and Hants Carabiniers Yeomanry. Meanwhile, Lady Mary's sister Lady Violet Constance Maitland (1886-1936) married the 4th Earl of Verulam in 1909. Lady Mary's brother, Reginald Brabazon, 13th Earl of Meath, married Lady Aileen May Wyndham-Quin (1873-1949), a daughter of Windham Wyndham-Quin, 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl. There were two Holt sons: Adrian John Reginald (1907-1967) and Geoffrey Brabazon (1907-2008). Lady Mary sold the priory's furniture and outside effects, and presumedly the house in 1947, and St Gabriel’s School opened in 1948;
• Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, of St. Gabriel's School;

Sandleford Lodge/Cottage/Place

• Henry Hart Millman, divine, whose wife Mary Anne was a daughter of Lt-general William Cockell (died 1831) of Sandleford Lodge;
• Mrs. Wedderburn (1825-), aka Selina Mary Garth, daughter of Captain Thomas Garth, RN, of Haines Hill, Hurst, Berkshire, and widow of Frederick Lewis Scrymgeour-Wedderburn (1808-1874), de jure 8th Earl of Dundee, and her daughters Charlotte and Selina Elgiva, (1856-), were living at Sandleford Lodge, c. 1881 and 1883;
• William Frederick Hicks-Beach (1841-1923), MP, was living at Sandleford lodge in 1869.
• Brigadier Wyndham Torr, CMG, DSO, MC, (1890-1963) of Sandleford Place; soldier in WW1; military attache Madrid, Lisbon, Washington, Spain, etc.;
• Hon. Seton Montolieu Montgomerie (1846-1883), and his wife Mrs. Montgomerie, aka Nina Janet Bronwen Peers Williams (daughter of Thomas Peers Williams, MP), of Sandleford cottage (later renamed place), and their daughters Viva and Alswen.

Miscellaneous

• Alice de Colville (died before 1220?) of Maidencourt, East Garston. Gave six quarters of wheat (28 pounds x 6 = 168 pounds = 12 stone) from Maidencourt to the Priory of Sandleford for praying for the souls of John le Marshal (died 1194) and his younger brother William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, of Newbury Castle, Hamstead Marshall, etc.
• King John, on September 8 and 9 1204 stayed at Freemantle Park, above and south of Kingsclere and then on August 22 1213 was at Peter des Roches the bishop of Winchester's Bishop's Clere (later Highclere);
• King Edward II, of Carnarvon, on 31 August he was at Sandleford Priory, where he apparently tarried for the night. The Itinerary lists him as spending September 2 1320 at Rigaud of Assier, the bishop of Winchester's Bishop's Clere, on the site of the present day Highclere Castle, and 29 and 30th August he was at Crookham, Berkshire.
• Dated the feast of St. Katherine, 9 Edward III, [25 November, c. 1336], a grant was made by Hugh atte Thome and Maud his wife to Sir Nicholas atte Thorne their son, chaplain, of a burgage in Newtown (Nova Villa juxta Sandelford) between the brook called 'Aleburne' on the west and the highway to Winchester on the east;
• King James I, was leased Sandleford farm by the Dean and Canons of Windsor, January 1605.
• Anthony Child, Mayor of Newbury 1614, and sometime leasee of Sandleford;
• Prince Rupert of the Rhine, at the start of the First Battle of Newbury in September 1643 the Prince lined up his cavalry at the western end of Sandleford estate, straddling the boundary with Wash Common and looking towards Enborne.
• Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex: '... the line of march pursued by Essex to Reading, was from the Wash, by Sandleford, over Greenham Common, ...'
• Richard Pinfold, one of 30 of the freeholders of Newbury in 1655, and sometime holder of the lease of the coppice named High Wood;
• Levi Smith (died 1703), Mayor of Newbury 1674 and 1693. Owned land in Greenham and along the Enborne at Peckmore in Greenham that abutted Sandleford and was later part of its demesne.
• Richard Durnford, Bishop of Chichester, his mother Louisa (born 1781) was a daughter of John Mount (1725-1786) of Wasing was born at Sandleford. John Mount was also a grandfather of William Mount, (1787-1869), MP.
• Rt. Rev. Richard Pococke (1704–1765), Bishop of Ossory and Meath, collected Cedar of Lebanon seeds in Lebanon in 1738, some of which are known to have been planted at Highclere Castle and Wilton House, but probably also at Sandleford and his family's own Newtown House, Hampshire;
• James Asprey, Esq., maltster, of Sandleford Grove, exhibited white trump wheat grown on very poor soil, weight 67 Lbs per bushel, at the Great Exhibition of 1851;
• Richard Adams, who grew up in Wash Common;
• Bloor Homes;
• West Berkshire Council;
• Lady Ana Wyndham-Quin.

File:Mrs Elizabeth Montagu, engraved by Thomas Holloway, published by John Sewell, Cornhill, 1785.jpg

Mrs. Montagu, engraved by Thomas Holloway, published by John Sewell (died 1802), 32 Cornhill, London, 1785.

Mrs Elizabeth Montagu's 1743 description of Sandleford

In 1743 Mrs Montagu wrote from Sandleford to her old friend the Duchess of Portland and described her new retreat:

'...I had a very pleasant journey to this place, where I am delighted to find everything that is capable of making retreat agreeable; the garden commands a fine prospect, the most cheerful I ever saw, and not of shirt distance which is only to gratify the pride of seeing, but such as falls within the humble reach of my eyes. We have a pretty village [ Newtown ] on a rising ground just before us.'

_{Where the cottage chimney smokes,}

_{Fast between two oaks.}

'Poverty here is clad in its decent garb of low simplicity, but her tattered robes of misery do not here show want and wretchedness; you would rather imagine pomp was neglected than sufficiency wanted.'

'A silver stream [the Alder stream, aka river Enborne] washes the foot of the village; health, pleasure, and refreshment are the ingredients that qualify this spring; no debauch, or intoxication, arises from its source.'

'Nature has been very indulgent to this country, and has given it enough of wood and water; the first we have here in good plenty, and a power of having more of the latter, as improvements are undertaken.'

'Here are temptations to riding and walking. I go out every evening to take a view of the country; the villages are the neatest I ever saw; every cottage is tight; has a little garden, and is sheltered by fine trees...'

Landscape

The priory of Sandleford's foundation diploma or charter (circa 1194) describes in Latin the scope of the site and lands of the priory:

'Geoffrey count of the Perche and Countess Matilda endow the Augustinian priory of Sandleford (Berkshire) with the church and all the land at Sandleford, together with the wood known as Brademore [Broadmore] and with all the land on both sides of that wood that is, bounded by the watercourse known as Aleburn [river Enborne] from the bridge at Sandleford to the Alburnegate, then by the road which runs from Alburnegate towards Newbury up to the croft of William the huntsman [Wash Common] and on the third side from there along the road [Monks Lane] to the croft of Robert fitz Rembaldand [Robert son of Rembaldi] on the fourth side [A339] up to the bridge at Sandleford. The right to build a mill is granted together with an annual sum of thirteen marks of sterling to be taken from the mills of Newbury every four weeks. When the prior dies one of the remaining canons is to be chosen in his place, 1194-1202.'

A typical lease, this one dated 6 May 1668, granted by the Dean and Canons of Windsor to John Kingsmill of Sandleford, scite of the Priory etc all lately in tenure of Humphrey Fo[r]ster of Aldermaston, in the County of Berks, Bart, and John Harrison of Lincoln's Inn for 21 years at £15 2s. for fishing AND Lease of Sandleford coppices, called Bradmore and Highwood, the first late held by Anthony Childe and the other by Richard Pinfold, and their coppices in the Parish of Migham, in all 68 acres, by the Dean and Canons of Windsor to John Kingsmill of Sandelford, esquire.

Another later but similar lease of the estate, this one dated 31 August 1737, between Edward Montagu and the Dean and Canons of Windsor in summary read: Lease of the scite of the Priory, the farm of Sandelford [Sandleford], and Tydhams [Tydehams] and all messuages, tenements in Sandelford and Midgham, Berks, in Burrowghcleere [Burghclere] and Sidmanton [Sydmonton], in the county of Hants, the meadow called Milmead on the South side of Aborn Streame [River Enborne], (except woods and the tenement which John Dean occupies in Sandelford near Abornstream and an acre of land on its north side, and Waterleaze and a piece of Sandelford green 3 acres and certain rights of fishing in Aborn stream) - and also fishing in the river Kennett in the parishes Limborn [Lambourn], Enborne and Nubery [Newbury], by the Dean and Canons of Windsor to Edward Mountague of London, esquire.

If approached and seen from the south, from the Newtown Common or Whitchurch road, the distant prospect of Sandleford, with steep, magnificent and south facing parkland and wooded slopes with the priory itself sitting atop, high, the effect would have been like that of Camelot or Shangdu. The Xandu of Samuel Purchas, as in his 1614 description based on what Marco Polo had reported: In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumpuous house of pleasure, which may be moved from place to place.

• 

  North of Barn copse, Looking north-easterly towards Slockett's Copse.

• 

  Looking east across a water meadow, from Slockett's Copse to High Wood.

• Sandleford, view south over water meadows towards Barn Copse and the edge of Dirty Ground Copse, with Gorse Covert beyond.jpg

  View south over water meadows towards Barn Copse and the edge of Dirty Ground Copse, with Gorse Covert beyond.

• 

  Looking south from Crook's Copse towards Dirty Ground Copse, between High Wood, on the left, and Slockett's Copse, on the right.

• 

  Vista looking north towards Crook's Copse, from the track, with Slockett's Copse on the left, and High Wood on the right.

• Sandleford, looking west-north-west towards Barn Copse, from the track, near Gorse Copse.jpg

  Looking west-north-west towards Barn Copse, from the track, near Gorse Copse.

• 

  Dirty Ground Copse, from the south.

• 

  Dirty Ground Copse, and a field, from the south.

• 

  Looking north towards Crook's Copse, between High Wood, on the right, and Slockett's Copse, on the left.

• 

  Southern edge of Crook's Copse from the northern fringe of High Wood.

• 

  Looking south from west edge of Crook's Copse to north fringe of High Wood.

• 

  Looking west- north-west towards and over water meadows, with High Wood and Slockett's Copse on the right and Dirty Ground Copse on the left.

1911 Ordnance Survey map of Sandleford.

John Willis map of Sandleford, 1768.

An exterior corner of Barn Copse, showing a game crop.

Water meadows, looking east-south east towards, on the left, Slockett's Copse, and Dirty Ground Copse.

The parish of Sandleford is, as mentioned above, about 500 acres, most of which is an arcadian farm and woodland that lies to the west of the priory/school. This almost square block is bounded by the River Enborne to the south; on the west by a hedge line that runs two furlongs to the east of the Andover Road (A343) which runs north-south through Wash Common; Monks (Monkey) Lane and therefore Newbury to the north (though the parish boundary runs a bit south of the road); and the Newtown road, A339 (previously A34) to the east (though clearly parish boundary and the priory/school is to the east of that).

Almost the only way into this park is from the west, from the A343, Andover road, past the Roman Catholic church at Warren Lodge, and down the remaining 200 yards of an ancient track flanked by field maple, oak, ash, hazel, ivy, elm, elder, hawthorn, and blackthorn. Around here the cavalry of Prince Rupert of the Rhine lined up before the first battle of Newbury in September 1643, and near here are the meadows which feature in the beginning of Richard Adams' semi-factual novel Watership Down. At this point the enclosed track ends at the Newbury (Wash Common)/Sandleford parish boundary, but the public footpath or former carriage track continues. In previous centuries, in Mrs. Montagu's day, this was the main route to the priory from the west, from places like Bath, Somerset. Here the view quickly opens out, expansively, perspective tricks have been played with hedge and wood edge lines which add to the sense of infinity and space.

File:Sandleford Priory, and rainbow, and part of High Wood, from the old carriage track to the west, near Gorse Covert, 2015.jpg

Sandleford Priory, and rainbow, and part of High Wood, from the old carriage track to the west, near Gorse Covert, 2015.

Barn copse is passed on the left or north. A hedge line connects Barn Copse to Dirty Ground Copse, and another hedge line from that forms an arrow with the northern edge of Gorse Covert. Comparison of the 1761 John Rocque map with how things now appear suggests a degree of highly clever tweeking of wood and hedge lines to maximize the effect of the landscape took place in the late eighteenth century. In the far distance on the right, to the south, there is Sidown Hill with its brick folly Heaven's Gate, built in 1749 for Hon. Robert Sawyer Herbert (1693-1769), MP (for Wilton 1722-1768), of Highclere, second son of Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke, visible at about 60 feet high, and next to that Beacon Hill.

As the track passes through the bottle-neck formed by this hedge and the north-east end of Gorse Covert the viewer then goes through to the next installment, a first distant prospect of Sandleford Priory itself, and the North Downs, including Watership Down.

The track continues due east passing High Wood and a distant view of Slockett's Copse and Crook's Copse beyond to the left or north. Eventually the track reaches the A339 and the main entrance to the priory/school. Through the heart of this block of 500 acres a small stream runs north south from the top of Crook's Copse, down between High Wood and Slockett's Copse and then having been joined by another smaller stream runs east parallel with the southern edge of High Wood and then turns south again towards the River Enborne.

In 1749 Elizabeth Montagu wrote to her husband from Tunbridge Wells: My Dearest, ... I flatter myself the Captain will think Berkshire not inferior to Surry [sic], especially if he bestrides his Arabian steed, and surveys the prospects from Newbury Wash, Greenham &c. When he is tired of mere cows and sheep, and would behold some of those fair creatures, Father Philip's geese,...

Mrs. Montagu's views on landscape, indicating that parks and gardens should be under the care of the cherub Contemplation, are somewhat revealed in a letter to Gilbert West, dated 1753, 25th:

'I suppose you have been at Stowe, where art has exhausted all her powers,'

Equel, che il bello, o il caro accresce all' opre

L'arte, che tutto fa, nulla si Scopre

'Such, I am told, is its present state; when I saw the gardens they brought not so much to one's imagination the scenes of paradise, as of that garden, where the sapient king with his fair spouse held dalliance; it is rather a retreat for the proud and victorious, than the philosophic mind; like the poets, it was an Elysian only for heroes; ambition found examples there, and restless emulation fair incitements, but no quiet scenes hushed the passions into peace, and excluded the visions of this world's vanities; which, I take to be the great benefit of the retreat which should put the mind into the guardian care of the cherub Contemplation.'

Dear Brother, It would be with much greater pleasure I should take up my pen to tell you I am at Sandleford, if I could flatter myself with the hope of alluring you to it: you would find me in the character of a farmeress. The meagre condition of the soil forbids me to live in the state of a shepherdess-queen, which I look upon as the highest rural dignity.The plough, the harrow, and the spade remind us that the golden age is past, and subsistence depends on labour; prosperity on industrious application. A little of the clay of which you complain, would do us a great deal of good. I should be glad to take my dominions here from the goddess Ceres to give them to the god Pan, and I think you will agree with me in that taste; for wherever he presides, there Nature's republick is established... ... At Sandleford you will find us busy in the care of arable land. By two little purchases Mr. Montagu made here, my farm contains six hundred acres. As I now consider it an Amazonian land, I affect to consider the women as capable of assisting in agriculture as much as the men. They weed my corn, hoe my turnips, and set my Pottatoes ; and by these means promote the prosperity of their families.

Mrs Montagu described the land and farming at Sandleford in this letter to one of her brothers, dated Sandleford, June 9, 1777. (From The Monthly Magazine, volume 29, edited by Richard Phillips, London, 1810, page 558).

In July 1782 Mrs Montagu mentioned the high unemployment then found in Newbury and the works going on at Sandleford: The scene is extremely animated; 20 men at work in the wood and grove, and the fields around are full of haymakers. The persons employed on the work are poor weavers who by the decay of our manufacture at Newbury are void of employment, and not having been trained to the business of agriculture are not dexterous at the rake and pitchfork, but the plain digging and driving wheel barrows they can perform and are very glad to get their daily subsistence.

In a letter dated Deal, July 21, 1786, Elizabeth Carter wrote to her friend Elizabeth Montagu: 'Your letter, my dear friend, ... The trouble which you receive from the curiosity of people to see your improvements at Sandleford, is one of the natural embarras des richesses. Nobody plagues me by besieging my doors in carriages, and upon pillions to see my cottage. After all, however, it is very strange how people can be so impertinent, one would think they might at least suspend their impatient curiosity till you were absent'.

A year later Elizabeth Carter, in a letter, dated Deal, June 22, 1787, pointed to the music of the groves: ' ... By this time, my dear friend, I hope you are enjoying the music of your groves at Sandleford... '.

1781 survey

A survey of the 619 acre, 2 roods and 17 perches estate made for Mrs Montagu in 1781, and used when the lease of 503 acres and 111 acres was sold to William Chatteris on 3 November 1835, shows that in 1835 111 acres were owned outright by the Lord Rokeby on the east side (mostly in the parish of Greenham), that 87 acres on the east side belonged to the Dean and Canons of Windsor (held by Lord Rokeby), and that 416 acres on the west side of the road (also leased from the Dean and Canons of Windsor by Lord Rokeby), with 5 acres belonging to Mrs Colman near the mill. An outstanding question regarding this 1781 survey is whether it was a depiction of what work was to be done, as conceived by Lancelot Brown, or how the estate was at the time, or both?

87 acres of coppices on the west side (acres, roods, perches)

• Waterleaze and Broadmoor coppice: 41 2 09
• High Wood coppice: 18 3 10
• Upper Moor coppice: 2 01 10 (now Gorse covert)
• Lower Moor coppice: 3 1 01 (now Gorse covert)
• Dirty Ground: 5 0 17
• Orchard House coppice: 5 2 10 (now Slockett's copse)
• Wilsons coppice: 4 0 06 (now Barn copse)
• Parting Ground coppice: 5 2 16 (now Crook's copse)
• Furze close border: 0 2 16 (near Orchard House coppice)
• Hassocks above halls mead: 0 2 12 (linear or ghost wood east of Parting Ground coppice).

60 acres of meadowland on the west side (acres, roods, perches)

• Upper mill mead;
• Lower mill mead;
• Mill mead;
• Grabbed piddle;
• Pound meadow;
• Over way cow leaze;
• Upper peat mead;
• Upper eight acres;
• Four acres;
• Ireland;
• Halls mead.

227 and 40 acres of arable on the west side (acres, roods, perches)

• Great Water leaze 12 2 19;
• The Pond 0 3 24;
• Middle Leaze 14 1 15;
• Upper Moor 13 1 21;
• Lower Moor 11 1 30;
• Fulwars 16 0 33;
• Picked Harts 10 3 24;
• Round Harts 20 2 14;
• High wood close 16 1 0;
• Fatting Leaze 19 3 03;
• Adams ground 20 1 6;
• Parting ground 15 0 22;
• High Field 23 2 28;
• Gravel close 3 1 13;
• Furz ground 28 3 15;

and

• Newberry [sic] grounds, (aka Tydehams, alias Tidlaws), comprised three fields on the brow of the slope north of Monks' Lane, looking north down towards Newbury, that totaled 40 2 00. (These 40 acres were developed into Newbury's smartest cul-de-sac from March 1923 when Dr. George Alan Simmons (died 1951) bought 42 acres from Christopher Saunders, who had acquired them in 1911 from the trustees of the estate of Alpin Macgregor, late owner of the Sandleford Priory Estate. There were 10 houses by 1928; 12 by 1931; 25 by 1941; 28 in 1963; 30 by 1982; and 39 in 2010. Major-general Llewelyn Alberic Emilius Price-Davies, VC, CB, CMG, DSO, lived briefly, 1926-1929, at the house variously known as Badsworth, Mary Leen and Lustleigh).

The 16 acres field known as Fulwars was no doubt named after Fulwar Craven, 4th Baron Craven (1704-1764), of nearby Benham Park and Hampstead Marshall, High Steward of Newbury 1739-1764, and a founder of the Craven hunt. The 1781 survey map also shows the Montagu purchases of coppices (such as Little Peckmore and Collin's coppices) and water-meadows at Peckmore and on the north side of the Auborn stream (alias river Enborne], and its layout before its severe disturbance by the new west-east running A339; re-routed along the river Enborne as a result of two of the old roads to Newbury that formerly crossed Greenham Common south-north being severed when the airport was made circa 1942. The map also shows a Rick yard; farm yard, with a very large barn; the Green yard in front of the priory; a Wilderness walk; and a Bowling green. The map shows the stream that flows south into the river Enborne (aka Auborne stream) which also marked the border of the parishes of Greenham and Sandleford and was to provide the water that formed what is known as Brown's (extant), Woodhouse (derelict), and Newtown ponds (seems to have disappeared). Collin's coppice ran just east of the priory's demesne, near where the first ponds were formed. Collin's coppice still exists at the south-western corner of Greenham Common, as does Peckmoor, an arable field now a grazed part of Bunker farm.

Midgham

The priory of Sandleford held land in nearby Midgham. In the 13th century this was assessed as one carucate (120 acres). There were still at least woods connected to Sandleford there down to the mid-eighteenth century.

Recent history

On 30 September 1986, the circa 470 acre Sandleford Farm, was sold by Neate's, with help from Knight Frank & Rutley, at the Chequers Hotel, Newbury, for over two million pounds. In the meantime the 1972 writings of Richard Adams in chapter one of Watership Down regarding the borders of Wash Common and Sandleford (what Adams calls Sandleford Common) seem rather prescient concerning the ambitious and imminent housing plans that have since abounded.

Suddenly Fiver shivered and cowered down.

'Oh, Hazel! This is where it comes from! I know now -

something very bad! Some terrible thing - coming closer

and closer'.

He began to whimper with fear.

'What sort of thing-what do you mean?I thought you

said there was no danger?'

'I don't know what it is,' answered Fiver wretchedly.

'There is'nt any danger here at this moment. But it's

coming - it's coming. Oh, Hazel, look! The field! It's

covered with blood!'

...

'Back to the burrow?' whimpered Fiver. 'It'll come

there - don't think it won't! I tell you, the field's full of

blood -'...

... ...

THIS IDEALLY SITUATED ESTATE, COM-

PRISING SIX ACRES OF EXCELLENT

BUILDING LAND, IS TO BE DEVELOPED

WITH HIGH CLASS MODERN RESIDENCES

BY SUTCH AND MARTIN, LIMITED, OF

NEWBURY, BERKS.