Sandleford Priory (country house)

[4] Dear Brother, [William or more likely Matthew, 2nd Lord Rokeby] 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.

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.

[57] 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.

Another half-brother-in-law Sir Alexander John Arbuthnot, KCSI CIE (1822–1907) lived at nearby Newtown house;[58] At the time of the 1911 census Sandleford Priory was inhabited by two males and 14 females.

[77] 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.

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.

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.

[80] 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.

[81] 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.

Comparison of the 1761 John Rocque map with how things now appear suggests a degree of highly clever tweaking of wood and hedge lines to maximise the effect of the landscape took place in the late eighteenth century.

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.

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,[83][84] 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,[85]' Equel, che il bello, o il caro accresce all' opre L'arte, che tutto fa, nulla si Scopre[86] '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;[87] 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.

In November 1762 replying to a letter from her husband Mrs Montagu wrote:[96]You are very good in consulting me about the Trees..., which suggests that landscape works had been going on post the Rocque map of 1761 and preceding Capability Brown's involvement post 1781, more in a style as seen at Studley Royal/Fountains Abbey or as painted by people like Jacob van Ruisdael, Antonie Waterloo (1609–1690), or Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788).

[100] 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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

[110] 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.

The Radical MP and journalist William Cobbett (1762–1835) wrote about Sandleford in his journal whilst staying with the farmer Mr. Budd at Burghclere, on 30 October 1821.