Southwater House

Southwater House

A Gothic style former vicarage built in 1854, designed by Joseph Clarke. The date is confirmed by an inscription on the drawing room fireplace. The building is constructed of coursed and squared stone rubble with ashlar dressings, and features a tiled roof with three stone chimneystacks.

The house is asymmetrical, rising to two or three storeys with a single-storey service wing and an attached former stable courtyard to the north-east. The south-east entrance front comprises three bays. The central entrance bay, of three storeys, has a narrow gable and a trefoil-arched window to the first floor, with an arched stone entrance featuring corbel heads and a six-panel door adorned with elaborate iron hinges. The larger northern bay is also three storeys, with a casement window to the second floor, triple sash to the first floor, and a projecting mullioned and transomed window at ground level. The recessed south bay is two storeys, with a triple sash window to the upper floor set within a gable with bargeboards, and a triple mullioned and transomed window below.

The south-west elevation displays an ornamental trefoil ventilation panel in the gable end, a five-light mullioned and transomed bay window at ground floor level, and a large square bay. The north-west elevation contains three bays. The southern bay is a wide gabled structure of two storeys with a triple window to the first floor and two French windows on the ground floor. The narrow central bay has a two-light trefoil-headed staircase window to the first floor. The wider northern bay is three storeys, with a casement window to the second floor, a triple sash to the first floor, and a mullioned and transomed window at ground level. A gabled dormer and external chimneystack mark the north-west side of the main house, though this area is largely obscured by the single-storey service wing.

The service wing features a smaller arched entrance with a plank door on the north-east side and terminates in a former stables with hayloft above, aligned south-east to north-west, its central gable featuring a dormer with wooden bargeboards. An enclosed former stable yard, with a stone wall incorporating a carriage entrance flanked by square stone gatepiers capped with ball finials, is attached to the eastern end of the stable block. At the northern end of this wall stands a further range of single-storey outbuildings, including a former coach house with a dovecote in the end gable. A brick garden wall in Sussex bond, approximately eight feet high, attached to the north-west end of these outbuildings, forms the property boundary.

The interior is richly appointed. The main entrance leads into a small vestibule with a glazed screen opening into the staircase-hall. This hall features a roll-moulded cornice and exposed V-jointed ashlar walls. The dogleg closed string pine staircase has elaborate turned balusters, many partly twisted in the centre, with square newel posts decorated with square finials and pendants. The first-floor staircase window contains stained glass patterned with intersecting circles, shields of the See of Chichester, and a Tudor rose.

Numerous four-panelled pine doors connect the principal rooms. The library is finished with a coved cornice and coffered ceiling, and retains a stone fireplace with carved corner shields of the See of Chichester and foliate spandrels, along with original window shutters. The morning room has a coved cornice, a stone arched fireplace with foliate spandrels and Fleur de Lys Minton tiles, and also retains shutters. The drawing room features a coved cornice, Tuscan columns in the window bay, and a corner stone fireplace with a trefoil arch bearing the 1854 date in its corbel corner details. The dining room, thought originally to have been the servants hall, contains a large cast iron fireplace. Service rooms include a former game larder. The master bedroom displays a stone fireplace with a corbel-supported cornice and pointed arch lined with Minton tiles. Other bedrooms contain stone fireplaces with trefoil-shaped or Caernarvon arches, or wooden surrounds with cast iron fire grates. A service staircase to the second floor features twisted balusters and a turned newel post at the landing.