South Stoneham House is a Grade II* listed former manor house in Swaythling, Southampton, England. It was the former seat of the Barons Swaythling before the family moved to the nearby Townhill Park House. The building is owned by the University of Southampton, and was used as a hall of residence, part of the Wessex Lane Halls complex. It has been derelict since 2005.
Originally known as Bishop's Stoneham, the records of the manor date from the 11th century, but the current house was constructed in the early 18th century. It has been attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor with the gardens and landscaping attributed to Lancelot "Capability" Brown. The house is located close to the River Itchen and Monks Brook and the manor's previous owners include the Willis-Fleming family of nearby North Stoneham and Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling.
After Montagu's death in 1911 his son elected to continue living at nearby Townhill Park House, and South Stoneham was sold in 1921 to University College Southampton (now the University of Southampton) for use as student accommodation. In 1964 the building was considerably altered by adding a 17-storey tower and a kitchen and dining complex to the building. The tower was deemed unsuitable for continued use and in 2004 the university submitted plans to demolish it with the intention of converting the original house into a conference venue and building new blocks of flats on the remaining landscaped gardens. The house and tower ceased to be used in 2005 and the house was boarded up in 2009. The university placed the property up for sale in 2015 but failed to find a buyer. The 2020 planning application for demolition of the tower included plans, agreed with Historic England, to build student accommodation and put the manor house back into active use. The tower was demolished in early 2022. The house remains boarded up, described as "a pathetic sight" in the new edition of Pevsner's The Buildings of England.
History
Manor of South Stoneham (990–1708) A charter dating from 990 relates to the manor of South Stoneham and during building works in the area immediately around the current house and grounds, archaeological evidence of a Saxon settlement was found. The manor of South Stoneham was originally called Bishop's Stoneham, and was held by the Bishop of Winchester at the time of the Domesday Book. The original parish of South Stoneham covered more than , and extended along the eastern side of the River Itchen from the site of the present day Eastleigh in the north to just above Northam Bridge in the south, and from Swaythling to the outskirts of the original town of Southampton on the western side of the river; it included the tithings of Allington, Barton, Pollack, Shamblehurst, and Portswood. Other than St. Mary's Church (which is close to South Stoneham House but predates it considerably) and a few adjacent houses, there was no village of "South Stoneham"; the closest village to the house was Swaythling, now a suburb of Southampton.
The tenants of the manor apparently took their name from it; a Gregory de South Stoneham (or Gregory de Stoneham) is recorded there in 1236 and 1249, and in 1315 the manor was held by Nicholas de South Stoneham (son of Guy de South Stoneham). In 1348 Thomas de Stoneham and his wife Alice were lord and lady of the manor, and five heiresses of theirs – possibly daughters – held the manor in 1367. However, that year they quitclaimed it to Adam le Chaundle.
The history is somewhat incomplete after that point, but records do exist of the manor being passed from Nicholas Fitz John to William Nicholl in 1436 and from John Langhorn to Thomas Payne in 1478. After Payne's death the manor passed to John Langhorn's son William, and it remained in the Langhorn family until Stephen Langhorn, or Langher, sold it to John Capelyn for £140 in 1553.
Capelyn sold the manor to William Conway in 1600, who sold it to Edmund Clerke in 1612; Clerke's son inherited the manor in 1634 but only survived for a further two years, at which point the manor passed to Edmund Clerke's 8½-year-old grandson, another Edmund. This Edmund Clerke was the Sheriff of Hampshire and clerk to the Signet in 1671. Clerke the younger married the daughter of Giles Frampton, who took control of the manor after Clerke's death and sold it to Edmund Dummer, a former Surveyor of the Navy, in 1705.
South Stoneham House (1708–1920) Dummer purchased the South Stoneham estate, comprising approximately , for the sum of £3,400. The house was constructed in 1708 as Dummer's family home, and its design has been attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor; the listed building description published by Historic England states that Hawksmoor was "almost certainly" the architect. The actual construction was carried out by Dummer's uncle, Thomas Dummer of London. Edmond Dummer was from nearby North Stoneham and had been baptised in St. Nicolas' Church there. The grounds of the house comprised 110 acres, with 5 acres of water.
Edmund Dummer was declared bankrupt in 1711 and he died in debtors' prison two years later. His cousin Thomas, a lawyer who had acquired the manor on Edmund's behalf, fought a lawsuit attempting to gain control of the property; however in 1716, Edward Nicholas of Newton Valence took ownership of South Stoneham, purchasing it from Edmund Dummer's daughter, Jane. William Sloane, whose brother Hans founded the British Museum, purchased the manor from Nicholas in 1740, and it was subsequently owned by his son, another Hans Sloane who went on to become a member of Parliament. The previously formal grounds were landscaped between 1772 and 1780 by Capability BrownThe Times, 13 June 1804 at a cost of £1,050. In 1797, Frances Elizabeth Eyre, later Countess Nelson of Trafalgar and of Merton as wife of Thomas Nelson, was born at the house.Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871. From 1804 to 1809 the estate was owned by Jean Louis Bazalgette. Bazalgette came from a French family of tailors and was born in Ispagnac, France in 1750. Around the age of 20 he began travelling north and within five years was in London as an established tailor. He was commissioned by George, the Prince Regent to travel back to France while the two countries were at war in order to obtain a particular material the prince desired for a waistcoat. John Lane purchased the estate from Bazalgette for £15,000 in 1809 or 1810, but was later declared bankrupt and the manor was put up for sale in 1815. It was not until 1819, however, that it was bought by John Willis Fleming, who also owned the manor of North Stoneham where a new house was being built for him at North Stoneham Park.
When the new North Stoneham House was completed, John Willis Fleming moved there and leased South Stoneham House to General Joseph Gubbins until the general's death in 1832. In 1831 there was a major fire at North Stoneham, and John Willis Fleming returned to live in South Stoneham House again after Gubbins' death while North Stoneham was rebuilt. When this was completed in 1834 South Stoneham House was again advertised to let, and in the latter part of the 1830s a Colonel Boucher was in residence. The house was advertised for let again in 1843 after which Mrs Charlotte Maria Beckford, who had lived at Chawton House and was acquainted with novelist Jane Austen from their mutual time in Chawton, leased South Stoneham House with her sister, Miss Lucy Middleton. Beckford died at South Stoneham House at the age of 86 on 25 June 1854, and Thomas Willis Fleming (second son of John) moved in. He purchased the property from his elder brother in 1857 and lived there until 1860/61. At this point they leased the property to W. C. Standish. The Willis Flemings put the house up for sale in 1875 and sold South Stoneham House for £20,000 in 1878, to Captain Thomas Davison (or Daveson). Included in the sale catalogue issued on 23 November 1875 was Wood Mill (still standing and operating as an outdoor activities centre as of 2013), Gascon Cottage, and land for building. "Gascon's Meadow with house thereon in South Stoneham" was reconveyanced the next year.
In 1888 South Stoneham House was purchased from Davison by Samuel Montagu, who became the first Baron Swaythling in 1907. During his tenure he had a large porch added to the front entrance of the house. Eleven years after buying South Stoneham House he also purchased Townhill Park House for his son Louis, who continued to live at Townhill after Samuel's death in 1911.
Hall of residence (1920–2005) South Stoneham House was acquired, with South Hill (some two miles to the northwest), in 1920 to house male students at University College Southampton. The salmon pool at South Stoneham was retained by the Montagu family, becoming part of the Townhill Park estate. Tradition prevailed in the house, with a collegiate atmosphere as gowns were expected to be worn to dinner and lectures and curfews were enforced.
By 1924, there was distinct pressure on space in the halls of residence, and it was clear that more rooms were needed. The existing halls were full and so South Stoneham and South Hill were extended by covering their outbuildings.
During the Second World War, the Highfield location of the college meant it was directly in the war zone itself. With Southampton being attacked, the halls of residence were also at risk: at South Stoneham windows were blown in by bombs. The School of Navigation at the college was relocated to the communal rooms of South Stoneham House for the duration of the war, and afterwards was moved to Warsash; in 1970 the school became independent of the university (instead it is affiliated to Southampton Solent University) and is known as the Warsash Maritime Academy.
When the college obtained its royal charter in 1952, South Stoneham House was used to house around 70 male students out of a student population of over 800. Chemist Alan Carrington was one of the students housed in South Stoneham in that first year as the University of Southampton, and Carrington went on to become a professor of chemistry at the university.
The stables and servants' quarters were demolished in 1961 and in 1964 a concrete tower extension was added to the hall, incorporating a bar and dining hall area. The tower contained 180 student rooms over its 17 floors and was 48.7 metres high, making it the 10th-tallest building in Southampton in December 2017. Despite some later claims to the contrary, there is no contemporary evidence that these extensions were intended to be temporary.
On 9 January 1986, Southampton City Council created the Itchen Valley Conservation Area which includes South Stoneham House and Lodge. This places a number of restrictions on the construction of new buildings and the demolition of existing structures; however the council made an exception in the case of the tower block attached to South Stoneham House, which "may be considered for demolition by the University within the plan period."
In 1997 the university undertook extensive repairs to the roof of the house. The entrance hall was redecorated, the capitals to the pillars and pilasters being re-gilded. It is not clear whether any other rooms were renovated at this time.
In the 1990s South Stoneham House was merged into the Wessex Lane Halls complex of residences, although each individual hall maintained an individual character. Residents were catered for and ate originally in South Stoneham's own dining hall, part of the 1960s extension, and later in the Galley Restaurant in the neighbouring Connaught Hall. Residents shared small kitchen and bathroom facilities.
Dereliction, restoration and redevelopment proposals from 2005