SANDLEFORD PRIORY
Sandleford Priory is two miles south of Newbury, Berks. It was originally founded by Geoffry, 4th Earl of La Perche, and his wife Matilda of Saxony, between the years 1193 and 1202, dedicated to St. Mary and St. John the Baptist, and placed under the Austin Canons; but Mr. Money, in his “History of Newbury,” states “the recluses of Sandleford” are mentioned in the Pipe Roll of the 26th of Henry II., 1180, so that a body of religious had existed there or near before the date of the building by the Earl de la Perche.[276] In the reign of Edward IV., circ. 1480, a dispute arose between the Prior and the Bishop of Salisbury, in whose diocese Sandleford lay; in consequence of this dispute the monastery was forsaken, and the King, at the instance of the Bishop (Richard Beauchamp), gave it to the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. In the 26th of Henry VIII. it was stated to be in their possession, valued at £10.
[276] His ancestor accompanied the Conqueror to England.
In the time of James I., 1615, Sandleford was declared to be a separate parish, and unratable from Newbury, but the chapel being dismantled and unfit for use, £8 a year was ordered to be paid to the Rector of Newbury, which entitled the occupants of the Priory to a seat in the Newbury parish church, which has been continued ever since.
The lessees from the Dean and Canons of Windsor appear, from a paper of my uncle, Lord Rokeby’s, to have been, early in the eighteenth century, the Pitt Rivers of Stratfieldsaye, by whom the lease was sold in 1717 to William Cradock, Esq., after an intermediate alienation. The lease was purchased in 1730 by Mr. Edward Montagu, grandson of the 1st Earl of Sandwich. A letter of April, 1733, of Mr. John Rogers to his aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Sarah Montagu, at Sandleford, about the death of his mother, Mrs. Rogers, and her leaving her sister £10, and each of her three children a ring, is in my possession, and shows she was then living or staying with her son Edward.
The chapel is erroneously stated in several works (vide Tanner, etc., etc.) to be destroyed. It was disused, not destroyed, though the bells, seats, and the tomb of the crusading knight[277] had disappeared. As we proceed further into the manuscripts we shall see it was used as a bedroom or rooms!
[277] Probably Count Thomas de la Perche, son of the founder, as his father was buried at St. Denis Nogent. Thomas died in 1217. For a description of the tomb, etc., see note at the end of this book.
The situation of the Priory is charming, the principal rooms fronting south on a slight eminence, sloping to the river Alebourne, now called Enborne, which crosses the high-road just below the lower lodge, and skirts the south side of the park. On the east the ground slopes to a wooded valley, down which are many ponds, dating from the monks’ time, some of which were joined together by Mr. Montagu, afterwards more by his widow, to form lakes. Many fine trees surround it in these days, and at the time of Mr. Montagu’s first living there, seem to have been exceedingly numerous; also walled gardens, which are now removed. Beyond the valley to the east the ground rises in a wooded ridge. The village here mentioned must have been a few cottages near the mill on the west, which existed where Sandleford Lodge is now built: these have all long ago disappeared.
SANDLEFORD PRIORY.