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The
whole site lies within the land parcel 198 on the tithe map
of 1838 (figure 2), described as Sandy Way Farm on
the accompanying apportionment. This was a farm of 85
acres, owned by William Casy Cocks and farmed by Joseph Large.
The census of 1841 records Joseph, aged 30, and his 24 year
old wife, Elizabeth at the farm, together with William Williams
a 14 year old farm lad.
The 1876 Littlebury’s Directory lists
Mr James Meredith at Sandy Way. In 1905 the house, The
Sandiway, was the residence of Edward William Prevost, PhD,
FRSE. Dr Prevost was still resident there in 1913 but
had acquired the rank of Major.
The military connection continued in 1929 when
the occupier of The Sandiway was Lt-Colonel John St Clair
Macmillan. There were several ex service
officers in the village including the, clearly socially inferior,
retired Major Charles Howard Featherstonehaugh Nixon, who
was not only a rank lower but had held an Indian Army Commission.
Colonel Macmillan was seriously outranked in the village however.
A retired Royal Navy captain, Ethelbert S Silk, lived at White
Hall and a full colonel, Edward Deedes Newnham-Smith JP at
Frogmore. Any social consolation that the former was
an Engineer-Captain and that latter ex Indian Army could not
have disguised the fact that a full colonel of the British
Army, Colonel C Fairlie, lived at Wharton Lodge. But
at the apex of the military and naval establishment of Preston
was the occupier of Bromash House, Major-General Sir Harry
Christopher Tytler KCB, CMG, CIE, DSO, who stood considerable
higher up the ladder.
In 1929 even General Tytler’s gardener
had been listed in the directory, as had several others.
In 1934 Charles Reeves had an entry as Colonel Macmillan's
gardener at The Cottage. Charles Reeves remained as
gardener in 1941, when the occupier of The Sandiway was Philip
Bartholemew Barnaby, JP.
The
cartographic information suggests that the area to be investigated
was a paddock adjacent to the farmhouse in the early 19th
century. |
