Mottisfont Abbey is a country house with, as the name implies, monastic origins. It occupies extensive grounds by the River Test, to the NE of Mottisfont village, between Romsey (S) and Stockbridge (N). The house was built by Sir William Sandys in 1538-40 within the shell of the dissolved Augustinian priory of Mottisfont. It was remodelled by one of Sandys’s successors, Sir Richard Mills, c.1740. Works for John Barker-Mill in the 1830s uncovered a piscina and part of the pultipum. Several additional medieval features were exposed in 1900-1902 by the then-owner, Mrs Vaudrey Barker-Mills. Modernisation and redecoration were undertaken by Gilbert and Maud Russell, who bought the property in 1934. Maud Russell donated Mottisfont Abbey to the National Trust in 1957 but continued to live in the house until 1972. Shortly afterwards it opened as a visitor attraction.

The main body of Mottisfont Abbey, running E to W, has a double pile. The present form of the pedimented S range, on the site of the N cloister walk, is mid-18thc., but it may have originated as a Tudor gallery with stairs in the re-entrant angles of the E and W ranges. The parallel N range was built in the late 1530s within the shell of the nave and central tower of the cruciform priory church. The chancel and side chapels to the E of this, together with the N transept, were probably demolished by Sandys (see History). The upper stages of the tower were removed but two orders of the N crossing arch can still be seen on the N elevation, together with their capitals. A Venetian window within the blocked arch lights the dining room. The S side of the W crossing arch is preserved in a cupboard inside this room.

Two nave windows have been exposed in adjoining bedrooms beyond the dining room, in the SE corner of the Red Room and the S wall of the White Room. Three bays of internal blind arcading survive on the S side of the nave, in what is now the café kitchen on the lower ground floor. The damaged remains of similar arcading have been uncovered in the N wall, within the café. The public entrance to the café has an Early English doorway on its inner face: this has been largely renewed and possibly repositioned.

The S transept is preserved in the E wing. The arch that formerly opened from the transept into the S chapel now provides access, via the E porch, to the National Trust café and lower ground floor passage. One jamb of the corresponding arch, which led from the N transept into the chapel on the N side of the chancel, is buried in a buttress on the NE corner of the house.

The E and W claustral ranges were remodelled as part of Sandys’s house in the 1530s, then truncated by Sir Richard Mills in the mid-18thc. to create short wings terminating in canted bays (see History). The W wing and terrace overlie the outer parlour and the vaulted undercroft (cellarium) of the cellarer's range, while the E wing occupies the S transept and part of the chapterhouse. Remains of the chapterhouse are preserved beneath a double flight of steps on the S side of the wing, and two responds, complete with springers, have been reset inside the E porch. The shafts and capitals are of Purbeck marble. The N jamb of the chapterhouse doorway also survives.

The chapterhouse, cellarium and nave doorway have round moulded capitals and bases characteristic of the mature Early English style and are not included in the CRSBI record.

Mottisfont Priory was established for 11 Augustinian canons. The annals of Oseney reveal that it was founded and endowed by the lord of the manor, William Briwere (or Brewer), in 1201. Briwere was a prominent administrator and judge who founded two other monastic establishments, both in Devon: Torre Abbey (Premonstratensian; 1196) and Dunkeswell Abbey (Cistercian; 1201). The foundation of Mottisfont Priory was confirmed by a royal charter of 1204. Further gifts from the Briwere family and others augmented the original endowment. The Winchester annals record the consecration of the church in 1224. Nevertheless, in 1275 oak was obtained for the building, either to complete the work or for repairs.

The priory church comprised a square-ended chancel flanked by shorter square-ended chapels, a central tower, projecting N and S transepts, and a long unaisled nave of, possibly, six bays. The irregular spacing of the buttresses on the N elevation suggests that a chapel may have been attached to the E end of the nave. The main cloister lay on the S side of the church, with the chapterhouse and dormitory in the E range, the refectory to the S, and the outer parlour and cellarer’s range to the W. An infirmary cloister is thought to have been located on the E side of the dormitory range.

In 1410 it was recorded that ‘the buildings of the priory were in want of repair’. In 1457 the Prior wrote to Pope Calixtus III that owing to ‘an earthquake and other disasters’ the church and buildings had been ‘greatly crushed and loosened so as to need costly repairs’ (Country Life, 29 April 1954, 1312). Attempts by Henry VII to convert the priory into a college came to nothing. Shortly before the Dissolution Henry Huttoft, sheriff and head of Customs at Southampton, paid for repairs. His arms appear on the soffit of the pulpitum which separated the nave from the choir in the crossing (now within the café). Huttoft hoped to be granted Mottisfont in 1536, but it was given to the Lord Chamberlain, Sir William Sandys (d.1540), who had recently remodelled his ancestral house, The Vyne, N of Basingstoke.

In 1536 the church and 'mansion' were in reportedly in good repair, but the outhouses ruinous (VCH vol. 2, 174). In summer 1538 Sandys was living in the house of a local priest, John Atkinson, while he supervised work on his new house. Atkinson wrote to Lady Lisle: ‘My Lord Chamberlain has been keeping household in my house at Mottisfont ever since the beginning of May and I think will continue until All Hallowtide to oversee his works here. He makes a goodly place of the Priory and intends to lie there most of his life’ (Country Life, 19 November 1921, 655). The main range of the new house occupied the nave, with adjoining ranges organised around the former cloister. Part of the chancel or N transept may have been retained as a chapel. Sandys or his immediate successors may also have added a second courtyard, on the S side of the refectory, which is visible as parchmarks in dry summers. The house was depicted with a double courtyard plan on an estate map of 1724.

The layout was substantially altered by Sir Richard Mills around 1740, when the outer courtyard and refectory range were swept away, and the house transformed from a courtyard plan to a U-shaped plan, open to the S. The completed work was shown in drawings of 1743 by Paul Fourdrinier. Fourdrinier's plans (but not his elevations) suggest that the chapterhouse range was retained as cellars, but it had certainly been reduced in size and buried under a grass ramp by the 1820s.

Rev. John Barker Mill undertook work after inheriting in 1836, exposing part of the pulpitum in the kitchen area and the piscina in the S wall of the S transept (Prosser 1833-1839). Under the direction of the antiquary Henry St John Hope, several medieval features were uncovered during works for Mrs Vaudrey Barker-Mill, after her tenants, the Meinertzhagen family, surrendered their lease in 1900 (Hampshire Chronicle, 26 April 1902, 6). This included the N crossing arch (not visible in Buckler’s view of 1822) and the S chapel arch. The chapterhouse remains were uncovered in 1902 when the grass ramp was replaced by a double flight of steps.

In 1934 the house was bought by Gilbert and Maud Russell. Although Maud Russell gave Mottisfont Abbey to the National Trust in 1957, she continued to live in the house until 1972. Shortly afterwards, the property was opened to the public.

The fragmentary blind arcading on the N side of the nave was discovered in 1995 when a Victorian safe was removed.

The National Trust has installed visitor facilities (cloakrooms, café and café kitchen) at lower ground level, and opened the upper ground-floor rooms to visitors. There is an art gallery on the top, or first, floor. The presentation of the property focuses on the Russell family.

Mottisfont Priory belonged to the Transitional period, when late Romanesque sculptural forms were giving way to a simpler Early English style. The church incorporates variations on scallop, waterleaf and flat-leaf capitals, while the chapterhouse and cellarium are purely Early English and were, presumably, erected at a slightly later date. The nave arcading straddles the overlap: it includes foliage and scallop capitals in the Romanesque tradition, but is otherwise Early English.

Despite the documented foundation date of 1201 for Mottisfont Priory, it has been suggested that work began on the church as early as c.1190 (VCH 1911, 503). This was probably due to the presence of scallops. Nevertheless, the overlap between Romanesque and Early English forms is considerable in the architectural sculpture of Hampshire (see, for example, St Cross in Winchester) and it seems feasible that work began on the priory church in or around 1201. This was the view of Pevsner & Lloyd (1967) and O'Brien et al (2018).

The earliest sculpture - in the transept, crossing and the E end of the nave - has a distinctive style, with thick flat bands forming scrolls and volutes above plain leaf-like forms or trumpet scallops. This recurs in the capitals of the N arcade and piscina at Bighton, in NE Hampshire. The miniature cushion capitals and impost mouldings also find close parallels at Bighton. The impost mouldings are particularly distinctive, having an edge chamfer on the overhanging rolls. Although there is no evident patronage connection, and the sites are some distance apart, the masons' workshops were probably connected. Some of the stonework at Mottisfont has visible masons' marks, and so there is potential to explore this parallel more closely.

It is likely that additional sculpture lies hidden within the walls of Mottisfont Abbey.

We are grateful to George Roberts for arranging the CRSBI visit and sharing his knowledge of the site, and to Kate Vince for helping us to navigate through the building.