Southwick Court

Southwick Court is a grade II* listed moated medieval manor house^[1] situated in the centre of a system of fields and water meadows that lie between the town of Trowbridge and the village of Southwick in Wiltshire. It has remained a private residence under a succession of different owners for at least 800 years. The current house dates back to the late 16th century, but its gatehouse is late 15th century. Both were built on the site of an even older manor house, dating back to the 13th century or before.

The house is arranged in an L-plan design 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 to the south in the village of North Bradley. This 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 before finally joining the river Biss.

Internally, the house retains many of its original late 16th and early 17th Century interiors, and display 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. Functional remnants of its origins as a former hall house survive or are still visible, including a bread oven in the wall between the two large fireplaces on the ground floor, and the echo of a former garderobe 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 different 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.

History of Southwick Court

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 service to take place in this chapel, provided that only members of the Greynville family and their guests attended. 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.

Nothing remains of the original house. 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.

At some point in around 1360, the house and its land passed in marriage into famous Stafford family following the union of Alice, daughter of the then-owner John de Greynville, and the first Sir Humphrey Stafford, later sheriff of Dorset and Somerset under Henry IV. Sir Humphrey and his wife lived at Southwick Court for the next several years.

However, after Alice’s death, Sir Humphrey married again – to Elizabeth (nee d’Aumarle) widow of Sir John Maltravers – and he moved from Southwick Court to settle in his new wife’s dower house in 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. His mother was Emma (surname unknown), according to her tomb in the parish church of North Bradley, where she was born, close to Southwick Court.

15th & 16th Centuries

The younger Sir Humphrey Stafford became the owner of Southwick Court until his own death in 1442. In his lifetime he earned the nickname of Sir Humphrey Stafford “with the Silver Hand”, probably “a figurative compliment to his liberality”. In one such example of 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 one 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. However, William was himself killed during Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450 against the government of Henry VI.

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.

William Stafford left an only son, another Humphrey, born 1439, and he was created Baron 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. Humphrey’s army was defeated at the battle of Edgecote Moor, partly as a result of Humphrey’s own apparent incompetence. Although he escaped the battlefield, Humphrey was captured by a Lancastrian mob and was beheaded at Bridgewater in August 1469.

Humphrey Stafford of Southwick and Devon died leaving only two daughters, both of whom died unmarried. As a result, Southwick Court passed to his cousin Anne, daughter of his aunt Alice. Anne was married to Sir John Willoughby of the house of Willoughby of Eresby. Though Sir John Willoughby was himself 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 the manor of Brooke near Westbury) 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.

However, the Willoughby family had now chosen to base themselves not at Southwick Court but at Brooke Hall, 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 Woolstan 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. Christopher Bayley married Maud, daughter of Thomas Horton of Iford, who herself had inherited a one-third ownership of Southwick Manor.

Following Christopher Bayley’s death in around 1560, Maud re-married Walter Bush of Dilton near Westbury. It is at this point that the house as it exists today was created. It’s not clear in exactly what structure the house existed before this point, but Walter Bush commissioned extensive alterations which included the addition of the L-shaped wing at the rear of the house. He left his mark in the form of his elegantly engraved initials and the date 1567 on a stone set into the new wing.

17th Century

Walter Bush lived at Southwick Court for the rest of his life, but upon his death in around 1600, the house reverted to the family of Christopher Bayley, his wife’s first husband. Another Christopher Bayley became owner at that point, and the house eventually passed to his daughter Rebecca. Her marriage to Henry Long of Whaddon conveyed Southwick Court into the Long family, where it was to remain off and on for almost 290 years. Following Henry Long’s death in around 1612, Rebecca married again to Henry Sherfield, Recorder of Salisbury and Member of Parliament for that city 1623 – 28. A Puritan, Sherfield was later tried in the Star Chamber and heavily fined for having broken and defaced a stained glass window in the Church of St Edmund in Salisbury.

Upon Sherfield’s death, the house reverted to Walter Long of Whaddon, his wife’s eldest son by her first marriage. Walter was Sheriff of Wiltshire and MP for Bath in 1627 and later for Ludgershall. He was described by Clarendon as one of the chiefs of the Presbyterian party, and was a fierce opponent of despotism. During the reign of Charles I, he was prosecuted in the Star Chamber and spent four years in the Tower from 1628 to 1633. He played an active part in the English Civil War on the side of Parliament, and was wounded at the Battle of Edgehill. Yet he was later to become just as vocal an opponent of Cromwell’s Protectorship, and after he was accused of attempting to destabilise the kingdom in 1647 he fled to France.

Long returned to England upon the Restoration and was granted the title of 1st Baronet of Whaddon. Upon his death, the house passed to his eldest son, the 2nd Baronet of Whaddon. The house was included by John Aubrey in his historical survey of Wiltshire, completed in 1690. The younger Sir Walter Long made further revisions to the house in 1697, and left his own mark in the form of his engraved initials SWL.

Since the 18th Century

Sir Walter Long died without issue, leaving his property to the sons of his sister, who had married Sir Philip Parker of Ewarton in Soffolk. The first of these was Calthorpe Parker of Whaddon, who took the name of Long, but also died without issue. The house was inherited by his nephew Sir Philip Parker a Morley, who also took the name of Long. When he died in 1740, the house reverted once again to the main Long family.

In 1871, according to Census records, John Long lived in the house, with his wife Sarah and children John and Sarah

In 1881, according to Census records, the house was occupied by by the widow Eliza Long, and her children Joseph, Eliza, Sarah, William and Florence.

The last of the Longs to have owned the house appears to have been the Rt Hon Walter Hume Long, MP for Rood Ashton in 1897. However, though he retained ownership, he leased the house and its farm to Christopher Wm Reakes. In 1911, according to Census records, Southwick Court was occupied by Christopher Reakes and his wife Doris, and their children Victor, Doris and Norman.

In 1939, the house was owned by Herbert H Bell, with his wife Edith, and daughters Susie and Joan.

Since 2009, the owners of Southwick Court have been Mr & Mrs Simon Tesler.

References

^ https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1194818

Sources

Wiltshire History [1]

Wiltshire: The Topographical Collections of John Aubrey [2]

Wiltshire Notes & Queries volume 1 [3] pp 556-560

Wiltshire Notes & Queries volume 2 [4] pp 24-29, pp 218-222 & pp 254-261

[1] ttps://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1194818

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