Sandleford Priory is a largely 18th century country house at Sandleford in the civil parish of Greenham in the English county of Berkshire. It incorporates the chapel of a former monastery and is currently the home of St Gabriel's School.
After the old monastery on the site was abandoned by its canons, the estate was given to the Dean and Canons of Windsor. They leased it out as a farm to various tenants before the Kingsmill family from Sydmonton Court converted it into a country house. This was subsequently much extended and elaborated by a later resident, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu.
Architecture The present Sandleford Priory is a Grade I listed building in of Grade II listed parkland landscaped by Capability Brown. It was mostly erected around the old priory buildings between 1780 and 1786 by James Wyatt, for Elizabeth Montagu.Climenson, 1906
Residents Residents have included:
Kingsmill family Three generations of the Kingsmill family of Sydmonton leased Sandleford between 1626 and circa 1715. Bridget Colt, Margaret Woodward (Lady Woodard [sic] seem to have been the lessee between Sir Henry Colt and Humphrey Forster), and Anne Forster, three of the seven daughters of Sir William Kingsmill, kt, (died 1618), by his wife Ann Wilkes, were followed by their nephew John, and then finally his son Henry.Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 1912, page 370. Lease dated, 20 November 1626: Sir Henry Colt (died 1635), of Colts hall or Greys in Cavendish, Suffolk; married (1614) Bridget, fifth daughter of Sir William Kingsmill (died 1618), knighted (May 1603),Sheriff of Hampshire, 1602 & 1613. of nearby Sydmonton Court, Hampshire, where on 18 and 19 August 1603 Sir William entertained King James and his Queen;Burke's Irish Family Records, 1912, page 370. By 3 October 1628, the tenant was Sir John Woodward (died 1659) of Weston-sub-Edge.Rental of the rents of the farm of Sandelford [Sandleford] made and delivered to Sir Jo. Woodward. His wife, Lady Woodward, aka Margaret Kingsmill (baptised 30 August 1598 – died 1664), was the third daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, Kt., by Anna Wilks). Before 1668, Sir Humphrey Forster (died 1663), of Aldermaston Court, Aldermaston, sheriff of Berkshire 1619–20; created a baronet in 1620; married (circa 1615/16) Anne (died 1673), eldest daughter of Sir William Kingsmill, kt. (died 1618) of Sydmonton by Anna Wilks;G.E.C. Complete baronetage, volume I, Exeter, 1900. Lease dated, 6 May 1668:6 May 1668: Lease 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. Counterpart. AND, 6 May 1668: 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. Counterpart. 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.Dr. Donne's letter of consolation to Lady Kingsmill following the death of her husband in 1624, was sold at Christie's, London, King Street, sale 7411 – The Albin Schram Collection of Autograph Letters, 3 July 2007, lot 54, for £114,000 (including premium and VAT).Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 1912, page 370.
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.The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604–1629, edited by Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010.
Their sons (baptised in 1668 and 1670) Robert and Henry Kingsmill died without issue in 1697 and between 9 July 1715 and 4 June 1717,20 December 1710: Lease of the scite of the Priory, the farm of Sandelford [Sandleford], and Tyd[e]hams 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, (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 Henry Kingsmill of Sandelford. Counterpart. not before Henry Kingsmill of Sandleford was High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1706–1707.from 14 November 1706William Kingsmill of Bristol (died 1717) mentions his first cousin Henry Kingsmill as being already dead in his own will dated 1717 December 5: 'William Kingsmylle of St. James, Bristol. Gent. All my goods between my daughters Bridget and Elisabeth Kingsmylle. My eldest daughter Ann Kingsmylle an annuity bequeathed to her by her cousin Henry Kingsmill of Sandleford, Berks. Esq.. Proved 22 Jan 1717/8 by his two daughters'. (from Bristol Wills, collated by Mary Mason)George Pitt the brother of Rachel Pitt, Mrs John Kingsmill, married Jane, the daughter of John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers.Anecdotes of the life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, vol. iii, London, 1810.A History of the County of Berkshire, Volume four, edited by William Page and P H Ditchfield, Victoria County History, London, 1924, pages 84–87.A treatise enumerating the most illustrious families of England, who have been raised to honour and wealth by the profession of law together with the ... court, and barons of the Exchequer, Fleet Street, London, 1686. 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.Irene Cassidy in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660–1690, edited by B.D. Henning, 1983
Meanwhile, the poet 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,Emily Climenson, Elizabeth Montagu, page 278.Magna Britannia: Being a Concise Topographical Account of the several counties of Great Britain, Volume 1, by Daniel and Samuel Lysons, page 353, 1806. possibly during the minority of the sons of Rachel Pitt (died 1690), aka Mrs John Kingsmill.See too, Thomas Pitt (1653–1726), who bought the quite close Swallowfield Park in 1717.
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;27 November 1717: Lease of the scite of the Priory, the farm of Sandelford [Sandleford], and Tyd[e]hams and all messuages, tenements in Sandelford and Midgham, Berks, in Burrowghcleere and Sidmanton, in the county of Hants, the meadow called Milmead on the South side of Aborn Streame, (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, Enborne and Nubery [Newbury], by the Dean and Canons of Windsor to William Craddock of Gainford, in the County Palatine of Durham. Counterpart.A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain, by John Burke, volume IV, page 257, 1838.
Montagu family Edward Montagu,31 August 1737: Lease of the scite of the Priory, the farm of Sandelford [Sandleford], and Tyd[e]hams 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, (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. 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.'His father owed this advancement to the patronage of his uncle Nathaniel Crew, bishop of Durham, and it was Crew's continued favour in the 1690s that led to Montagu's involvement in the north-east coal industry', as described by Eveline Cruickshanks in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690–1715, edited by D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002 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;Emily Climenson, page 144 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, Edward Wortley-Montagu (1678 –1761), the husband 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;Eveline Cruickshanks in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715–1754, edited by Rodney Sedgwick, 1970.