The name Stratfield means the field of the road or way and comes from the ancient Roman road from London to Silchester that crosses the parish. In days gone by the name was spelt Strathfield which means a broad valley and a field as the element Strath is often used in Scottish place names. Saye comes from the family name of Saye who once held the manor.

The Manor of Stratfieldsaye was made up from the property of two much older manors, in the 12th century it was owned by the Stoteville family but this then passed through marriage to the de Saye family at the start of the 13th century.

Before 1370 the manor pass to the Dabridgecourts through marriage and in 1629 they sold the property to the Pitt family and it was Sir William Pitt who built Stratfield Saye house c1630.

Stratfield Say was bought by the nation from the Pitts in 1817 and it was then present to Arthur Wellesley, who was the first Duke of Wellington in thanks for his famous victory at the Battle of Waterloo.

Here the Iron Duke entertained Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and lived out his days. Buried in the grounds is Copenhagan the Duke's old war-horse who bore him for the entire day at Waterloo, and his housekeeper planted an acorn near the grave at the time the horse was buried and this has now grown into a flourishing oak tree. A monument to the Duke that cost £3,000 in 1863 was erected in the grounds.

In 1758 the mediaeval church of St Mary the Virgin was pulled down when the present church of St Mary was being built. The modern church was built by George Pitt the first Lord Rivers and is of brick in the shape of a Greek cross and inside are monuments to the Pitt and Wellesley families

A monument to the 'Iron Duke', a towering column with his statue in bronze stands by the Gateway, it was designed by Marochetti. (Photo kindly submitted by John Dove)

There is an epitaph to John Baylie beneath the chestnut trees by the chancel door, he was the faithful servant of the Duke and died in 1777 and says tht his only sin was a drop of gin and finishes.....

......Though weak his head, to make amends
Heaven gave him health, content, and friends.
This little village nursed and bred him,
And good Lord Rivers clothed and fed him.

In the book, “Companion into Hampshire” by L Collison-Morley (pub 1940) it states “North-east from Bramley, through the richly wooded, undulating Loddon country, you reach Strathfieldsay { there seems to be variations it the spelling of these villages } . Like Strathfield Turgis, it gets its name from the Roman road that runs from London by Silchester to Bath. This road-strata, street, paved-has taken over the job of the {river}Lodden, which here forms the eastern boundary of the parish. It separates Hampshire from Berkshire. Once it was Strathfield-Stoteville from the family that owned it, becoming Strathfield-Say when Sir William de Say acquired it. Under Richard II it went to the Dabridgecourts. In 1729 it was sold to Edward Pitt, son of Sir William Pitt, Comptroller of the Household. Later George Pitt became Lord Rivers of Strathfieldsay. In 1817 it was bought by the Duke of Wellington who paid 263 thousand pounds for it. {There is also a Turgis Green nearby}
(Kindly contributed by Sid Barker)