The history of Mottisfont

16th century

A Tudor palace

When Lord Sandys was gifted Mottisfont, he set about transforming the priory into a grand house. During the 1500s and 1600s the Sandys divided their time between Mottisfont and their family seat, The Vyne.

To create his new home, Sandys used the surviving monastic buildings. This included converting the priory church into his main living accommodation, while retaining the outer courts on the south lawn.

Sandys had spent a lot of time in Europe, and he imported new building materials from the continent for his refurbishment. His changes created a modern, contemporary home, and the roof timbers to his Great Chamber can still be seen in the house, as well as other features such as fireplaces.

Sandys new house was sufficiently grand to host royal visits, with King Edward VI visiting for three days in 1552, with visits from Queen Elizabeth I in 1569 and 1574.  

In 1684, the eighth and last Baron Sandys died childless, and Mottisfont was left to his nephew Sir John Mill.

18th century

Georgian refurbishments

The Mill family transformed Mottisfont into the building and landscapes recognisable today. By the 1730s, Lord Sandys’ Tudor house was beginning to look old and dated, and Sir Richard Mill started modernising the house. He knocked down the outer courtyards and re-modelled the main house, adding the pediment and the projecting bays to create the house we see today.

The estate was widely used for country pursuits. Fishing and hunting were both popular, and in 1836, the Reverend John Barker-Mill built the grand stable block near the house, as well as the original fishing hut on the Abbey Stream.

The gardens were also developed, with the Great Plane tree being planted in this period. It’s now thought to be the largest and oldest of its kind in Britain.

19th century

The eccentric end of a century

In 1884 Mottisfont became home to Daniel Meinertzhagen, his wife Georgina (the sister of social reformer Beatrice Webb) and their ten children. They took the house on a lease from Mrs Marianne Vaudrey-Barker-Mill, under terms that forbade electric lighting or central heating.

The Meinertzhagens entertained noted intellectuals including George Bernard Shaw and Charles Darwin. The children grew up with a whole estate as their playground.

Following their departure, Mrs Vaudrey-Barker-Mill spent the equivalent of £3 million restoring Mottisfont so her son Claude could live there. The work exposed many areas of medieval masonry, including the ruins of the priory’s Chapter House on the south lawn, as well as features from Lord Sandys’ Tudor House.

20th century

Maud Russell at Mottisfont

Claude Barker-Mill was killed during the First World War, and although his mother Marianne lived until 1932, the family never moved back in, leaving Mottisfont to be rented out for shooting weekends.

In 1934, Claude’s son Peter agreed to sell the house to Gilbert and Maud Russell, which made Mottisfont the centre of a fashionable artistic and political circle. Well respected for her knowledge of the contemporary art scene, Maud supported the work of many artists and enjoyed the company of creative people, entertaining artists such as Rex Whistler and writer Ian Fleming.

Changes afoot 

When the Russells bought the house, the buildings were in a state of disrepair. Huge changes were made inside under Maud Russell’s guidance to create a luxurious, neo-classical setting for their new home. She used her keen eye for aesthetics to oversee the reconfiguring and redecoration of the house.

She was inspired by the existing historic décor, developing and enhancing it where she could. Complementing this is her love of neo-classical design, which created the luxurious, classical feel that’s still on show today.

In 1939, she commissioned Rex Whistler to transform the original entrance hall into a large saloon. The results were his spectacular trompe l’oeil murals, painted in a gothic style, light-heartedly reflecting the building’s origins as a medieval priory. The Rex Whistler Room was his last and finest piece before he was killed on active service in France.

1940s

The Second World War and beyond

Mottisfont’s restoration was completed just as the Second World War was declared and the house requisitioned by the military. The Long Gallery became a convalescent home for wounded officers and children evacuated from London lived in the Stable Block. The hand-dug ramparts of Woolbury Ring, an Iron Age hillfort on nearby Stockbridge Down, was used as a lookout post for enemy aircraft.

Maud’s husband Gilbert Russell died in 1942 and Maud moved to London to work for the Admiralty, travelling down to Mottisfont at weekends. Most of her war work has remained secret, but it’s thought that she provided translations for the intelligence services. She never forgot her German-Jewish ancestry and, in the years leading up to the Second World War, helped several Jewish families escape from Nazi Germany.

After the war

After the war, however, she made Mottisfont her main home and lived here for around 30 years, often with her new partner, the Russian-born mosaicist Boris Anrep, who created two mosaics. Anxious that it should be preserved, Maud gave the house and 2,080-acre estate to the National Trust in 1957. She continued to live here for another 15 years, taking an active interest in estate and village life.

1970s

Transforming the walled garden

The rose garden

In the 1970s one of the most important figures in 20th-century British horticulture, Graham Stuart Thomas, designed a rose garden in Mottisfont’s historic walled garden, housing many varieties of rose that may otherwise have become extinct. With an artist's eye and consummate knowledge, he combined roses with a mix of perennials to give a season-long display. Today, this is the National Collection of pre-1900 old-fashioned roses. 

The kitchen garden

The kitchen garden dates back to at least the 17th century and continued to be productive during the Second World War, providing produce for Mottisfont and the local community. Maud retained the walled gardens as her private space and continued using this area to produce vegetables while she still lived here.

In later years, this space played a number of different roles but by 2018 it was once again a fully restored working kitchen garden and a welcoming space for visitors.