Writing seven years after the death of her husband, the wealthy socialite and Bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu could look back over a period in which she had managed coalmining estates in Denton, built a new London townhouse in Portman Square, begun remodelled her country house at Sandleford in Berkshire, and set in process the work of relandscaping its pleasure gardens. To achieve this a husband was far from necessary, but the assistance of professional men was, and it is Montagu's engagements with a predominantly male world of architecture and landscape design that I want to explore in this essay. Focusing on the period in which Sandleford was transformed by ‘Capability’ Brown – and drawing on Montagu's wide-ranging correspondence – this essay investigates the relationship between a powerful Bluestocking and a professional male designer – but a designer whose death in 1783 meant that the transformation of the estate took place largely in his absence.

Unlike Brown – whose limited verbal archive means that he continues to remain something of an enigma – Montagu has left us an extraordinarily articulate and sustained correspondence.