Monteagle House
ENTRY IN HAMPSHIRE TREASURES
published by Hampshire County Council 1980
| Date | Protection | Grid Ref | Punchcard No. |
| House C.16 | T.&C.P.Act | SU804601 | 2017 58 |
Description
Monteagle House, Monteagle Lane. Front elevation wood frame contruction with brick panels. Tiled roof, gabled, seven bays. Casement windows. Brick chimney with double fireplace. Brick oven. Porch with dovecote above. Reputed to have been built 1540.
Comment by present owner, April 2008
The above description is unexceptional until the last sentence. I have no idea where the notion came from that the house was built in 1540. It seems to have been current only in the early 1970s. When we purchased the house in 1976 the Property Particulars from Jackson-Stops & Staff stated:
Description:
The front of the house is believed to date from the XVI Century and is constructed of brick and part timber. The rear part of the house which has been added at various stages in its history is brick with half tiled hung elevations, and the whole is under a tiled roof.
History:
The house is grade II listed and was built in approximately 1540 as a farmhouse of a 300 acre Crown farm in Henry VIII's Windsor Deer Forest. The Gunpowder Plot features in it interesting history and local legend.
The property was also offered by Pearsons, the estate agents, and their sale particulars were headed
A Tudor farmhouse, originally one of Henry VIII's Crown farmhouses in Windsor Deer Forest
A LISTED XVITH CENTURY PERIOD HOUSE, believed to have been built about 1540 as the farmhouse of a 300 acre Crown Farm in Henry VIII's Windsor Deer Forest. A collection of interesting documents concerning the history of the house has been amassed and these indicate, in particular, a strong association with the Gunpowder Plot during the reign of James I. These documents will be passed on to a new purchaser.
Of course I could not wait to get hold of these amassed interesting documents. These mainly consisted of a photograph of the 'anonymous letter' which had previously been framed and hung in the porch; the 'Jackdaw' about the Gunpowder Plot then published by Jonathan Cape; a typescript of conjectures by 'anon'; a copy of one volume of Burke's History of the Commoners published in 1836; and an OS map of military training areas. I spent an awfully long time working through the conjectures looking for evidence from primary source in record offices and, at home, working through Burkes looking for some clues. I had been told by the vendors that a fire in the record office had destroyed the house deeds before 1915.
After 30 years of research I have not been able to verify anything on the sales particulars: Yateley was never within Windsor Forest, Henry VIII never owned any Crown farms in Yateley, nor any other property here, since King Alfred had given the manor to the Prior and Monks of Winchester and it had remained in the hands of their ecclesiastical successors ever since. Even the information about the burning of the deeds proved to be wrong since I have traced the property in the manorial court books back to 1617.
At the present time there is no documentary proof that the house existed before 1617.
Several teams of archaeologists have offered building dates, but one eminent archaeologist has told me that any date they give me, based on style alone, will be plus or minus 25 years. My hunch at the moment is that the bricks in the stack offer the best chance of a more precise date -- but I have never met a brick dating expert.
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