Page:King Edward VII. as a sportsman by Watson, Alfred Edward Thomas.djvu/56



H.R.H. the Prince of Wales was looking for a country estate, it is probably safe to assume that one reason why the county of Norfolk was selected arose from the fact that it is famous for game. Another essential was that the new country home should not be too near to Windsor, and after long consideration in the year 1861 the Prince selected Sandringham, a choice which, far from ever repenting, experience proved to have been eminently judicious, for the Royal master of the domain could not have been better suited.

I have diligently examined ancient histories of Norfolk with a view to obtaining all available information about Sandringham from the days of its earliest recorded history; but search has not revealed a great deal which I did not put into an article written for the Badminton Magazine in the year 1906, when, by His Majesty's gracious permission, I paid my first visit, and I am constrained therefore to draw upon that description, with certain additions since gleaned.

Not very much seems to be known of the early history of Sandringham—Sand-Dersingham, as it is called in Domesday Book. A freeman named Tost enjoyed the place under "Herold [sic], afterwards King