Southover Grange

Southover Grange is a house built in 1572 for William Newton, Steward to the Earl of Dorset. The building is constructed from dressed Caen stone, removed from the Priory, with a roof finished with Horsham slabs on the lower slopes and plain tiles above. The roofline features coped parapets, irregular red brick chimneys, and a pair of 19th-century gabled dormers decorated with bargeboards.

The house follows a U-plan with a rear wing to the left. The west front presents two storeys with attics. Projecting wings flank a central recess on the ground floor, which is infilled. The fenestration follows a slightly irregular 2-3-1 rhythm. The ground-floor wings contain ovolo-moulded cross-windows, with 2-light mullioned windows above, all topped by hood-mouldings. A small 2-light window with chamfered mullion appears in the right garret with a hoodmould; to the left is a 2-light garret window similar to the first-floor windows but smaller.

The central recess displays a pair of 2-light ovolo-moulded mullioned windows flanking a central 3-light window with a shield over the central light. A continuous stepped hood-mould spans all three first-floor windows in the recess. Flanking a rounded Tudor-arched entrance are 6-light 19th-century windows with transom-and-mullion divisions and rounded tracery to the upper lights. The entrance has a boarded and ribbed door with a moulded surround, florally-decorated spandrels, and an uncarved shield with an attached light. A continuous hoodmould covers all three openings. All windows feature leaded casements set in iron frames. A small pedimented aedicule on the first floor of the re-entrant angle of the left wing contains a shield of a lion rampant.

The north front features a brick chimney-stack on the ridge to the left with arched panelled sides, an oversailing cornice, and a 19th-century bell housed in a gabled wooden bell-cote. Two gabled semi-dormers with gable-parapets and kneelers flank the lefthand stack. Two ovolo-moulded cross windows flank the stack with a hoodmould continuing around it and over a single-light window in the stack. The projecting wing to the left of centre displays regular fenestration with 5-light ovolo-moulded windows on ground and first floors, and 2-light windows in the garret. Two further windows at half-levels between storeys appear on either side, single-light below and 2-light above, all with cast-iron casements, leaded lights, and hoodmoulds. Two tall stone chimney-breasts rise to the right.

The east front is L-shaped, with a projecting canted staircase wing and a further gabled wing set in the re-entrant angle. It rises two storeys with attics to the right and displays irregular fenestration.

The interior contains a hall with a panelled ceiling and moulded beams on shield corbels, together with a marble fire-surround and Neo-Jacobean overmantel. The dining room features a fire surround with a stone-moulded Tudor arch inscribed 'WN 1572' in the spandrels, and an overmantel marked 'Ye Old/Welsh/Parliament/House/Dolgelly'. The staircase is a 19th-century Neo-Jacobean composition with twisted balusters and an early 18th-century hanging lantern decorated with foliage.

The diarist John Evelyn lived at Southover Grange as a boy in the early seventeenth century. The building was later used as the original of Mockbeggar's Hall in Ovingdean Grange by William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-82).