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You are here: Home > Leisure and culture > Tourism and travel > Local attractions > Southover Grange Southover GrangeRead More...Southover Grange, Lewes formerly known as Southover House or Southover Priory, was built by William Newton with Caen stone taken from the nearby ruins of St Pancras Priory. The date 1572 on the spandrels of the Newton Room fireplace has usually been taken as the year of erection.
In the 1790’s the Prince of Wales, who later became the Prince Regent and King George IV, often stayed at the Grange, sleeping in what is now known as the Regent’s bedroom. The William Newton of that period was a Colonel of the 10th Prince of Wales’ Light Dragoons and he was a close friend of the future Regent and King. In September 1793, Mrs Fitzherbert accompanied the Prince on a visit to the Grange. In 1871, William Laird Macgregor bought the house and made extensive alterations and additions to the building. He rebuilt the south east portion, installed the present main staircase, extended the east wing and added a new outer hall. He also rebuilt the stone chimney stacks and brick shafts. Oddly enough he appears never to have lived at the house and, when the alterations were completed, he took a great dislike to the place and never came again. Later owners included from 1901 to 1907, John Gordon Woodhouse and his wife Violet, the celebrated harpsichord player, who was the first artist to make gramophone records of harpsichord music and also the first to broadcast it. The house is the original of ‘Mock Beggars’ Hall’ in Harrison Ainsworth’s novel ‘Ovingdean Grange’ and the drawing room is now named after him. During the Second World War the house was requisitioned by the War Department. In March 1945 it was purchased by the former Corporation of Lewes and the house and gardens were opened to the public on 16th May 1945. The property came into the ownership of the Lewes District Council in 1974 and extensive works of restoration were carried out to the building. The north wing now houses craft workshops and the offices of the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
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William Newton, who was born about 1516, was the son of Humphrey Newton of Fulshaw Manor, Cheshire and came of a family from which Sir Isaac Newton claimed descent. The Newton family occupied the Grange for almost 300 years until 1860. In 1630, William Newton’s second son married Jane Stansfield the maternal grandmother of John Evelyn, the diarist, who lived at the Grange as a boy from 1630 to 1637 while attending the Old Grammar School, which formerly occupied the south eastern corner of the gardens.
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