Page 150 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

for the foreseeable future. To save even more money, the Treasury insisted on the use of a sub- stantial amount of military labour from the staff corps, so it was decided to use the manor house and cottages as barracks.
At the time of his appointment in 1802, Alexan- der Copland had established a brick works on site, so as to save the cost of transportation. This had resulted in great piles of brick, hastily made in the early years, which proved largely worthless when building actually commenced! Unusually, it had been agreed by a willing Treas- ury in yet another money-saving move, to allow Copland to build houses for the senior civilian instructors (professors and masters) at his own expense and recover the cost by charging rent, there being no town in the immediate vicinity to house them (Camberley did not exist then). These are the row of thirteen semi-detached Georgian houses just north of the A30 and behind Government House, dubbed ‘Tea Caddy Row’ by passing coachmen (photo 14). They are still in use as married quarters to this day.
The building construction budget was imme- diately revised downwards by the Treasury to £89,770 (around £4.2 million in today’s money*) and approval was given to Copland to com- mence work, but now to the revised plans of John Sanders. With Marlow bulging at the seams with now 320 cadets, much activity now centred on the Sandhurst estate. The cadets from Marlow finally moved in in 1812, although construction of the main building was far from finished, and work on stabling and training facili- ties not even started. Working parties from Militia units camped on Bagshot Heath were employed as paid labourers to dig out the mill stream and pond to form the lower lake. Records show
Photo 14
Photo 15
that they were paid 6d. a load (around £1.20 in today’s money*) to move 3,500 loads of earth. This was used to level the parade ground, then known as the ‘exercise ground’. The total cost of the project, including the purchase of the estate, construction work (including the officers’ quarters in the square behind the main build- ing, the two outlying houses joined to the main building by walls, and refurbishment of Govern- ment House), landscaping and tree planting, and the architects’ bills came out at around £350K (around £16.5 million in today’s money *), so considerably over budget in both time and cost!
The College building in 1812 consisted of what we see of Old College today, less the two Vic- torian ‘trident blocks’ behind either side of the main building built as cadet accommodation in the second half of the 19th century, and the cadets dining hall and kitchens built in the very early 1900s. The two outlying houses originally joined by a continuous wall (but now breached in two places on the eastern side) to the main building complex (of which the eastern one is now occupied by the Academy Adjutant) were built for the Paymaster (west) and Surgeon/ Medical Officer (east). The two houses, joined on to either ends of the main building by colon- naded walks, were destined for the Lieutenant Governor (west) and Superintendent (east). The western house is today known as Le Marchant
148 HISTORICAL