Southwick Court is a Grade II* listed moated medieval manor house at the centre of a system of fields and water meadows that lie between the town of Trowbridge and the village of Southwick in Wiltshire, England. It has remained a private residence under a succession of owners for at least 800 years. The current house dates from the late 16th century, but its gatehouse is late 15th century. Both were built on the site of an older manor house, dating back to the 13th century or before. Nothing remains of the original house, though the current building sits within the same footprint.
Description The house is arranged in an L-plan that is typical of the late 16th century. It and its associated garden and orchard are surrounded by a moat, which is fed by a leg of the Lambrok stream originating some distance away to the west of the village of Beckington. This stream surrounds the house and in turn feeds into an adjoining lake, which is enclosed at the northern end by a weir, also dating from the 15th or 16th century. The stream continues beyond the weir into the surrounding water meadows, and then on into Trowbridge where it joins the River Biss.
Internally, the house retains many of its original late 16th and early 17th century interiors, and displays craftsmanship of a high standard. The house has a number of intricate timber features including a late 17th-century carved staircase, framing and Tudor-arched stone fireplaces. Remnants of its origins as a former hall house survive or are still visible, including what appears to be a bread oven in the wall between the two large fireplaces on the ground floor, and traces of a former garderobe (or privy) built into the external north-eastern wall and connected to the moat through a channel which is still visible. The house also retains several stained glass and leaded windows of various styles and ages. Several bear the symbol of the White Rose of York and may have been saved from the original pre-16th century manor house. Some glass may have been brought from Beckington Castle, a nearby property built in the 17th century by members of the Long family, who also owned Southwick Court for many years.
The gatehouse, which may be from the late 15th century, is approached by a small brick-built bridge over the moat which is probably 18th-century; the ensemble is Grade II* listed.
History
Early history
The earliest record of a manor house of Southwick dates to 1274 when two carucates (about 240 acres) of land at Southwick, in what was then the parish of North Bradley, belonged to one William de Greynville. Twenty years later, in 1294, records show a legal agreement between the Rector of North Bradley and William's son Adam de Greynville who had built a private chapel in the grounds of his house Southwick Court, apparently dedicated to John the Baptist. The Rector of Bradley agreed to allow services to take place in this chapel, on the condition that only members of the Greynville family and "strangers arriving unexpectedly" could attend.The Edington Cartulary ed Janet Stevenson The family was also required to provide the Rector "from time to time" with "fit chaplains" who would "do fealty to him". Later, in 1369, Robert Wyvil, Bishop of Salisbury, granted a license for mass to be said in the chapel.
According to a later report,dated 29 Dec 1923 the chapel was "about fortie foote distance from the moate which boundeth the Court of Southwick". Mass continued to be heard in the chapel until the mid 16th century. In the 1540s, one "Sir Hugh" was "a morrowe masse priest who used to say morning masse or service (for high masse he might not say) in the Chapell neare to the Manor house or Court of Southwick, and did them great pleasure and ease until hee ranne away, because he was found in a fault". He reportedly took sanctuary in North Bradley a little "before the King went to Bullen" – a reference to Henry VIII's siege of Boulogne in 1544. "After this no other priest said masse in the Chapell".
The chapel fell into disuse and was later reportedly used as a stable or cowshed before being demolished in 1839. However, building material from this period has been found within the moated complex, including 13th century freestone pillar bases and moulded freestone arches, and it has been suggested that some of the timber framing from the earlier manor house has been integrated into the structure of the existing Southwick Court.
The house remained within the Greynville or Grenville family for several generations. According to surviving documents, it was occupied by several members of the family including William de Grenville and his wife Lucy in 1322, Nicholas de Grenville in 1332, and latterly John de Grenville and his wife Margaret from 1338. In 1341, John de Grenville's daughter Alice married the first Sir Humphrey Stafford, later sheriff of Dorset and Somerset under Henry IV. Upon John's death in around 1349, Sir Humphrey acquired the house and land, and he and his wife lived at Southwick Court for the next several years.
In 1354, Lady Alice Stafford suffered "a very unpleasant experience when several scoundrels which included J Talbot of Torbrigge [Trowbridge], J Tourney of Woolverton and Robert Torney of La Boxe broke the close at Southwick and abducted her, at the same time seriously injuring the servants and removing much of her father's goods."Chapter 21, A West Country Potpourri by Arthur Pooll 1969
After Alice's death, Sir Humphrey married again – to Elizabeth (née d’Aumarle) widow of Sir John Maltravers – and he moved from Southwick Court to settle in his new wife's dower house at Hook in Dorset. His sole son and heir, from his first marriage to Alice, was also Sir Humphrey Stafford. The elder Humphrey also fathered another son out of wedlock, in around 1380–1390. This was John Stafford, who went on to achieve considerable prominence in later life as a trusted adviser and supporter of both Henry V and Henry VI, latterly as Lord Chancellor from 1432 to 1450, and as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1443 until his death in 1452. His mother was one Emma (her surname is unknown) from nearby North Bradley, possibly a servant or a lady-in-waiting at Southwick Court. Though probably of humble birth herself, John Stafford arranged for her to be entombed after her death in 1446 in a specially constructed chapel within North Bradley parish church. Her tomb, though worn, still stands. Stafford himself is buried in Canterbury Cathedral.
15th century The younger Sir Humphrey Stafford became the owner of Southwick Court upon his father's death in 1413 until his own demise in 1442. In his lifetime he earned the nickname of Sir Humphrey Stafford "with the Silver Hand", probably "a figurative compliment to his liberality". He married his step-sister Elizabeth Maltravers, second daughter of Sir John Maltravers by his stepmother Elizabeth.
They had three sons – Richard, John and William – and a daughter, Alice. However, the two elder boys both died before their father, leaving William as the owner of Southwick Court after his father's death in 1442. In 1450, William joined Henry VI's service to fight the insurgents of Jack Cade's Rebellion, but killed in battle at Sevenoaks in Kent. (His sister Alice was by now married to Sir Edmund Cheyne, member of Parliament for Wiltshire, who lived in another important local house at Brook near Westbury).
Over the following decades, Southwick Court was to become a pawn in the struggle for supremacy between the House of York and the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses. Though John Stafford had been aligned with the House of Lancaster as a senior adviser to Henry VI, the main branch of the Stafford family were firm Yorkists.
Through his marriage to Katherine, daughter of Sir John Chidiock, William Stafford left an only son, another Humphrey, born 1439, who was created Baron Stafford of Southwick in 1461 by the newly crowned Edward IV, the first Yorkist King. After armed conflict broke out between the two sides, Edward appointed Humphrey Earl of Devon and sent him north to quell a Lancastrian rebellion led by the Earl of Warwick. However, the King's forces were defeated, partly as a result of a foolhardy fit of romantic pique on Humphrey's part.
Humphrey Stafford "was given command of 800 archers and ordered to report to the Earl of Pembroke in command of 7,000 Welshmen about to join battle with a large force of Lancastrians in the neighbourhood of Banbury. Near-by was an inn well known to both officers, as was the charm and beauty of a certain lady who dwelt therein. Presuming on his seniority the Earl of Pembroke claimed the billet, upon which Stafford marched his men back to Somerset. Soon after their departure, the Lancastrians attacked, 5,000 Welshmen were massacred, Lord Pembroke and his brother Sir Richard Herbert taken prisoner and beheaded. Subsequently by order of the King, Stafford Earl of Devon was arrested and beheaded at Bridgwater on August 17th 1469."
Humphrey Stafford of Southwick and Devon left behind two daughters, both of whom died unmarried. As a result, Southwick Court passed to his cousin Anne Cheyne, the daughter of Sir Edmund Cheyne and his aunt Alice. Anne was married to Sir John Willoughby of the house of Willoughby of Eresby. Though Sir John Willoughby was killed in the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, the house remained in the family. Sir John's eldest son was Sir Robert Willoughby, and along with many others among Wiltshire's gentry, he joined with the Duke of Buckingham to resist Richard III. As a result, Willoughby's lands were seized by the King, and Southwick Court (and also Brook) were bestowed upon Richard's favourite, Edward Ratcliffe, in 1483.
That change of ownership was to prove only temporary and two years later, Southwick Court was restored to the Willoughby family following Richard's defeat at the Battle of Bosworth. Sir Robert was ennobled by the new king Henry VII as Lord Willoughby de Brooke and appointed as Steward of the Royal Household.
16th century
The Willoughby family based themselves not at Southwick Court but at Brook, and in 1520, Sir Robert's son, also Robert, and the second Lord Willoughby de Brooke, sold the house. The buyer was Sir David Owen, the illegitimate son of Owen Tudor (and great-uncle of the future Henry VIII), who had been knighted by Henry VII for services rendered during the later Wars of the Roses. Owen was a notable figure in his own right despite his illegitimate status. A close confidant of Henry VII, he was the king's carver between 1486 and 1529, and was one of Henry VII's chief mourners upon the monarch's death in 1509. Yet Southwick Court was merely an investment for Owen. Henry VII had also brokered Owen's marriage to the heiress Mary de Bohun of Midhurst, who brought with her the Cowdray estate in Sussex, and it was this that became Sir David's principal residence.
Under the descendants of Sir David Owen, the ownership of Southwick Court seems to have become divided. One of his sons, Sir Henry Owen, sold a portion of the estate to Sir Wolstan Dixie, Lord Mayor of London, who in turn left his share to Christ's Hospital. Another portion was sold in 1556 by John Owen to Christopher Bayley of Stowford, from a family of wealthy clothiers in Trowbridge, who already had extensive property interests in the area (including the manor of Priston in Somerset). Christopher Bayley married Maud, daughter of another wealthy local clothier Thomas Horton of Iford. Maud Horton had herself already separately inherited a one-third ownership of Southwick Manor.