SOUTHOVER
Southover is first mentioned at the end of the
11th century, (fn. 1) and was presumably the parish originally served by the pre-Conquest wooden church of
St. Pancras which William de Warenne rebuilt and
made the nucleus of his priory. (fn. 2) The parish was outside
the ancient borough of Lewes, (fn. 3) but the urban portion
formed part of the new municipal borough in 1881. (fn. 4)
By a Local Government Act of 1894 it was divided
into St. John the Baptist, Southover, within the borough,
and Southover Without, and in 1913 the civil parish
of St. John the Baptist was included in the civil parish
of Lewes. (fn. 5) By the East Sussex Review Order of 1934
part of Southover Without was added to Lewes and the
rest to the parish of Iford. (fn. 6)
Anne of Cleves House — Lewes —
Southover possesses several buildings of interest.
The Grange, which lies at the foot of Keere Street,
is faced principally with Caen stone and was built by
William Newton, (fn. 7) steward to the Earl of Dorset, in
1572, when the Lords' Place (the manor-house in the
priory grounds) was destroyed by fire. It consists of
a central hall (modernized), 22 ft. 6 in. by 19 ft., with
a wing at each end, both of which project westwards
towards the street and have stone gables. The space
between the wings in front of the hall is now filled
with a modern vestibule, but above this on the south
face of the northern wing is a panel containing a shield
of the Newton arms carved in high relief. The two
wings also project to the east, the northern extending
for some distance, with a north stone gable to the staircase. An additional modern block projects southwards and a modern staircase hall stands between
the wings on the east from the south wing. The original
windows are of stone, mullioned and (on the ground
floor) transomed, and with stone weather-mouldings.
The chimney-stacks, which are all restored, are of stone
well above the eaves, and have brick shafts. Internally
there is a good Elizabethan oak staircase in the north
wing and much of the roof timbering is original. A
number of the old stone fire-places remain, those of
Newton's date having his initials and the date 1572.
There are also two early-16th-century fire-places with
carved spandrels, which were probably removed from
the prior's lodging, Lewes Priory. Others are
dated 1629 and 1675. There is a stone in
the garden wall dated 1729 and a lead pumphead with 1789. The gardens, through which
the Winterbourne flows, are extensive and
include the site of Lewes Grammar School,
which John Evelyn attended when staying
at the Grange with his grandfather's widow,
who married William Newton. There are a
number of carved stones from Lewes Priory
in the grounds.
Opposite the Grange is the chapel of the
Hospital of St. James, Southover, which is
now converted into a cottage. The internal
dimensions are 34 ft. by 15ft. The walls are
flint-faced and to the north and south retain
on each side two single-light mid-14th-century windows, with ogee heads and trefoil
cusping. There was originally a three-light
window with perpendicular tracery in the east
wall, and the infirmary hall extended west of
the chapel to the end of St. James's Lane. (fn. 8) The
Red House, south of the hospital, has a number of carved stones from Lewes Priory built
into its cellar. West of St. James's Lane are
the walls of the pound, with peephole squints
still in position.
'Anne of Cleves House' (called formerly 'the Porched
House') is now the Folk Museum of the Sussex Archaeological Society. (fn. 9) It is built partly of brick and flint
and partly of oak framing. The roofs are covered with
Horsham stone and tiles. It is an L-shaped building,
the southern section of four roof-bays, abutting on the
west on a range of six bays at right-angles to it. The
western of the four southern bays forms a hall from
floor to roof, the east and west walls being framed
with heavy timbers of king-post construction, and
having moulded beams above door height and at eaves
level. North and south are two plastered coves, over
which the upper moulded beams return; they correspond to a similar cove externally on the south elevation at eaves level. In the south wall is a large oak
window of fifteen lights, five lights above, below, and
between the two transoms, the central range being a
restoration. The second bay is occupied by a large
chimney-stack serving a fireplace in the hall, a passage
and a stair to the north communicating with the first
floor of the eastern part of the house. In front of the
passage, built out into the road, is a two-story porch
of flint and stone chequer work below and timber
above with the initials I. S. and the date 1599 cut in
the arch spandrel of the stone entrance door. Beneath
the hall, approached by a stone stair under the flight
already mentioned, is a cellar roofed with a roughly
semi-circular barrel vault of chalk and flint. From the
evidence of the remains of the stone doorway at the
foot of the stair it seems probable that this cellar belonged
to a 14th-century house which preceded the present
one. Apart from the Elizabethan porch and west wing,
the existing structure dates from the early 16th century,
and it was most likely constructed from old material
at the date of the dissolution of Lewes Priory. The third
bay eastward is very wide (15 ft.) and was at one time
divided into two rooms, back and front. It has a good
stone fire-place with moulded jambs, shaped above in
the form of double corbels, which support a moulded
four-centred arch. The eastern bay on the ground
floor formed a carriage-way to the rear of the building.
The upper floor in the two eastern bays projects over
the street and is of early-16th-century framing, tilehung on the south. To the north the building projects
beyond the posts of the trusses and the roof is carried
down to a lower eaves. There is an original Tudor
window of four lights with moulded oak mullions in
the east gable. The west wing is of Elizabethan date,
but its southern portion of two bays is a re-modelling
of an older wing of the medieval building. It overhangs
the street on the first floor. There is a large chimneystack between this section and the four northern bays,
the floors of which are on a different level to the former.
The ground floor of the north part is built of thick walls
of flint and stone with a six-light window to the west
and an open fire-place with chimney-beam. The first
floor is one large room, and its area is increased by a
3-ft.-6-in. overhang to the west, lit by a series of small
lights, till recently unglazed. The room is lighted to
the north by an oak window having five lights below
and nine above the transom, there being two winglights on either side beyond the jambs. The second
floor is also one room, now open to the roof but
formerly ceiled. The walls are all timber-framed with
heavy story-posts to each roof-truss. In the roof are
curved wind-braces. This room has a similar north
window to that below, except that the centre part
projects forward beneath the fascia of the gable. Close
by in the east wall is a four-light oak window similarly
projecting. There are also windows in the west wall,
including a projecting window of three lights below
and three above the transom, which is roofed externally
with a small gable having a much decayed carved
barge-board and pendants. A staircase addition has
recently been made to the north wing on its east side,
the staircase being that from the demolished Moat
House in Lewes High Street. (fn. 10)
At the west corner of Potters' Lane, which bounds
Anne of Cleves House, is a group of early-16th-century
cottages with half-timber work in their upper stories
and arched contemporary doorways. At the west end
of Southover High Street on the north side is an Elizabethan house with a flint and stone gable to the south,
and three stories with stone mullioned windows. The
house is merely a shell, having been incorporated in
the adjoining brewery, but in the building east of it,
which is tile-hung, is a small Elizabethan oak stair.
Lewes Priory
The remains of the Cluniac
priory of St. Pancras, in Southover, are fragmentary and are now
divided by the line of the Southern Railway from Lewes
to Brighton, which cuts across the site of the high altar
of the priory church and across the chapter house. It
was the construction of this line in 1846 which laid
bare the foundations of the church, and the information
gained at that time, supplemented by later digging,
enabled Sir Wm. St. John Hope and Sir Harold
Breakspear to produce a plan of the monastery. (fn. 11)
Close to the east wall of Southover parish church
are the remains of the Great Gate of the priory. It
was a square building with two adjacent archways in
its west wall and a stair-turret at the north-west angle.
The southern arch was approximately 10 ft. wide and
the northern 5 ft. The south jamb of the former arch
survives, and shows that it was of four orders, each with
a shaft, moulded base, and capitals. The material is
Sussex marble; the free shafts have disappeared, but the
capitals, bonded into the masonry, show square abaci
and stiff-leaf foliage, and the hollow mouldings have
carved leaf ornament. The smaller archway has been
re-erected at the west end of Priory Crescent and now
shows a two-centred pointed archway. An 18th-century
drawing by Lambert represents it as semicircular and
the span of the arch has been evidently reduced. The
date of the gatehouse, which must have been a building
of great importance and beauty, is about 1200. Portions of its southern wall still exist, bounding the parish
churchyard, and there is part of an archway in this
wall at right-angles to the entrance.
The only remains in situ of the Priory Church are
the southern wall of the south-west tower and a portion
of its west return. The masonry shows signs of the
subsidence caused by the underpinning of John Portinari, the engineer who threw down the church at the
order of Thomas Cromwell. (fn. 12) Only the inner face of
the tower wall is visible, with a moulded stone bench
on which stand the shafts and moulded bases of the
five arches forming a wall arcade. Part of the south
respond of the tower arch may be seen, and of the shafts
in the south-west angle, the whole of the work being
in Caen stone. Portions of the foundations of the south
wall of the nave are visible, and from excavations in
the adjoining churchyard the same wall has been found
to extend westwards, which may indicate a narthex on
the scale of Cluny and its dependent churches in Burgundy. The church had a nave of eight bays (clear of
the two western towers), double transepts with a choir
of four bays between them, each western transept having two eastern apsidal chapels, and each eastern transept one. East of the latter the church ended in a
chevêt of five apsidal chapels. The internal dimensions
were: nave (including tower) 215 ft. by 70 ft.; eastern
arm: length including transepts, &c., 210 ft.; width
across western transepts 150 ft., eastern transepts 102 ft.
The Cloister, which measured (including the alleys)
145 ft. by c. 100 ft., has gone, but beneath the ground
is a small domed chamber which marks the site of the
circular lavatory above, an independent building that
projected from the south alley into the cloister garth.
The lavatory was an elaborate structure of marble,
remains of which are preserved in the lapidary room
of the Museum of the Sussex Archaeological Society.
They include spiral shafts of varying design, bases for
twin shafts with spurs at the angles, and a portion of
the central laver, which was enriched with an arcade
of semicircular arches. The domed chamber may
represent the head of a well or the site of a cistern and
pump for filling the laver above. It communicated
with the sub-vault of the frater by a vaulted passage
that proceeds west and then turns at right angles south.
It is now cut off by the railway embankment.
The Frater floor was level with the cloister, but the
fall in the ground gave occasion for a sub-vault of six
bays, with five piers down the centre. These have
disappeared, but three bays of the south wall at its
eastern end exist to a considerable height and are
marked by external buttresses. In the western of these
bays are two double-splayed windows, the openings
being very narrow, with semicircular heads, while
the splays both within and without are unusually wide.
The ashlar facing to the wall stops at a height of four
courses above the arch stones, with a chamfered set-off
worked on the third course, and above this the frater
wall is faced with regular herring-bone courses of
small unworked stones. This technique, together with
the double-splays to the windows, would normally
suggest an 11th-century date, but may be a survival
of early building methods. It seems clear that at some
date in the 12th century the cloister was enlarged towards the west and that at the same time the frater
was extended and remodelled, a fact to be borne in
mind in connexion with the presence of this early type
of masonry and also the irregularity of plan noted below.
Another double-splayed window lights the easternmost
of the five bays under description, and to the east of
this are the plain stone jambs of a doorway, which
retains most of its western reveal.
East of this undercroft is a vaulted compartment of a
bay and a quarter, evidently the eastern part of the
earlier undercroft of the first frater, since it is in line
with the east wall of the cloister. It retains two spiral
staircases, one at the NE. and the other at the SE. angle,
the latter being intact for some height. The south wall
of this undercroft continues beneath the dorter range,
with responds of the main arches of the vault.
The site of the Dorter is occupied by a number of
vaulted compartments beneath its floor level; and here
again is evidence of extensive replanning and enlargement late in the 12th century. The first dorter, which
was probably over the chapter-house and the remainder
of the east claustral range, projected southwards beyond
the frater over a vaulted room with a free central pier
and with a small eastern chamber projecting from its
north-eastern compartment. The dorter terminated
against the old rere-dorter, a building measuring 95 ft.
by 25 ft. inside and lying east and west. Considerable
remains of this building survive, since it was incorporated in the later extension of the dorter; it is divided
into six bays by buttresses on its south face and has
clasping buttresses at the angles. The vaulted drain
runs within its south wall and was contained by a
parallel wall to the north. The external masonry shows
herringbone work, and the vault beneath its eastern
end is lighted by three windows to the north and three
to the east, beside three openings into the space above
the drain.
The later and enlarged dorter (internally some 70 ft.
wide) was carried over the old rere-dorter, and was
aligned with its eastern wall. It was continued two
bays farther south, the western part of the rere-dorter
remaining as a projecting extension. A new reredorter (measuring 158 ft. by 24 ft. inside) was built to
the south, with a clear space of 10 ft. between it and
the dorter, the two being linked by a stone bridge.
This building, though unroofed, is largely intact and
is an interesting example of its kind. It is constructed
like the earlier one with a wide stone paved drain
contained within the south wall and another wall
parallel to it on the north. The drain is vaulted before
it enters and after it leaves the building and passes
under arches in the end walls. At first-floor level the
area over the drain was occupied by 60 cubicles, divided
by walls which were carried on arches across the drain
space. The remaining area on both floors formed a
long hall, the lower one being possibly the laundry
of the priory. There are in the walls long internal
cavities which are supposed to have been filled at one
time with bond timbers, but the probability that they
communicated with the interior suggests that they
contained lead water-pipes, and this may be confirmed
by the fact that they have evidently been further
opened out when the priory was robbed of its materials.
The rere-dorter is divided externally to the south by
buttresses into four bays, in the centre of each of which
was a large square window, with one recessed order,
for ventilating the space above the drain. The masonry
of these and of the angle buttresses at the east end is
in beautiful condition, all cut from fine squared Caen
stone. The whole building had, however, settled towards the south, owing to the swampy nature of the
ground, and a number of heavy buttresses faced with
flint and stone chequerwork were added, probably in
the 14th or 15th century.
Abutting on the east side of the dorter was a large
aisled Infirmary Hall, with additional buildings to the
east of it, all of which are known only by their foundations. There are, however, important remains above
ground of the Infirmary Chapel, which stands just
south of the east end of the priory church. This chapel
follows the plan of the mother house of Cluny by
being independent of the infirmary hall, orientated
differently from the monks' Church, and in having a
triple east end, this last feature being also found at
Souvigny. The difference in orientation may be due
(as has been surmised at Cluny) to its being on the site
of the original church of St. Pancras given by the
founder. The extreme internal length is 100 ft. and
the nave is 29 ft. wide. The chancel is square-ended,
but the lateral chapels each terminate in an apse; the
altar-pace remains in the chancel, and in the north
chapel the stone altar itself has been preserved. The
walls of the chapel were thrown down by John Portinari by the same methods of under-pinning that were
used for the church, but the masonry held together
and much of the ashlar facing is in fine preservation.
An aumbrey in the north wall of the chancel is visible,
together with the angle-shafts which carried the vault,
and a fragment of an internal moulded string-course
with pellet ornament is still in position. The newel
and bottom treads of a spiral staircase can be traced
at the junction of the south chapel with the nave.
The only other building of which traces remain is
one that projected southwards from the west end of
the frater range. They consist of the core and part of the
facing of three of its buttresses, showing diaper work of
flint and stone, and probably belong to the 15th century.
Just east of the priory ruins is 'the Mount', a mound
some 45 ft. in height, the top of which is reached by a
spiral path. (fn. 13) Nothing is known as to its origin; but
the fact that it adjoins 'the Dripping Pan', a large
sunken rectangular piece of ground surrounded by
banks, may point to there having been a salt-pan here,
since in Essex such pans are accompanied by mounds, (fn. 14)
perhaps for windmill-pumps.
To the south-west of the monastery lay the great
pigeon-house, a cruciform building about 80 ft. in
length and breadth, which survived until early in the
19th century. (fn. 15)
Manor
At the time of the Domesday Survey there
were 44 haws or burgages in Lewes, pertaining to the manor of Rodmell (q.v.),
which may possibly have constituted, then or later, the
suburb of Southover (fn. 16) to the south-west of the town.
These burgages belonged to William de Warenne in
1086. (fn. 17) In about 1095 his son, the second William
de Warenne, gave the land called Southover, with two
ponds and mills, to the newly founded priory of St.
Pancras, (fn. 18) for which it provided the site, as well as
forming the manor of SOUTHOVER, which remained
the property of the priory until it was surrendered in
1537 to the Crown. (fn. 19)
In 1538 the manor of Southover and the site of the
dissolved monastery were granted to Thomas Cromwell. (fn. 20) After his fall Anne of Cleves was given the
manor and 'borough' of Southover, in 1541, (fn. 21) and these
returned to the Crown after her death in 1557. (fn. 22) The
manor was conveyed to Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, in 1582 by John Stempe and his wife Anne, (fn. 23)
and descended, along with the site of the priory, in the
family of the Sackvilles, Lords Buckhurst and Earls of
Dorset. (fn. 24) Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl, died in 1624,
holding the manor of the king in socage. (fn. 25) The site of
the priory of St. Pancras was also held of the king, but
by knight's service, and to it pertained the 'Southey', the
'Ryes', the 'Hammes', and the 'Broches'. (fn. 26) Richard's
widow Anne and her husband, Philip, Earl of Pembroke,
were still holding the manor in 1643, (fn. 27) but it passed
subsequently to the Earl of Dorset's elder daughter
and coheir Margaret, (fn. 28) who in
1629 had married John Tufton,
Earl of Thanet. (fn. 29)
Durrant. Saltirewise or and ermine a cross paty gules.
Their descendant, Thomas,
Earl of Thanet, with his wife
Katherine, sold the manor and
site to Nathaniel Trayton in
1710. (fn. 30) He died in 1715, and
his elder son Edward Trayton
devised the manor to Samuel
Durrant by will, and died in
1761. (fn. 31) Samuel Durrant of
Lewes died late in 1782, having
devised the manor to his cousin, Samuel Durrant of
Robertsbridge, surgeon, who died in 1783. (fn. 32) His second
son Samuel left it in 1822 to his son John Mercer Bosville
Durrant, who was lord in 1835. (fn. 33) Subsequently William
Verrall bought Southover Manor with all rights, and
died at the Manor House in January 1890 in his 92nd
year, (fn. 34) and from him it has descended to Mr. Frank
Verrall, the present lord.
The site of the dissolved priory of St. Pancras was
leased in 1539 for 21 years by Thomas Cromwell to
Nicholas Jenney, and this lease was confirmed in 1540,
after Cromwell's fall, by Henry VIII. (fn. 35) The site was
subsequently owned by the Earls of Dorset (see above).
Church
It appears probable that the church of
ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST was originally the hospitium at the gate of the Priory
of St. Pancras and that it was converted into a parish
church in the 13th century when, possibly, the new
Hospital of St. James was built close by. (fn. 36) It consists now of a nave and chancel without structural
division, a south aisle, west tower, and a modern
southern extension which includes the Gundrada Chapel
and a vestry.
The oldest part of the fabric is the arcade to the aisle,
which is carried on large drum-like piers of the latter
half of the 12th century. There are four of these piers,
the westernmost, although now engaged with the west
wall, having once stood free; so that the arcade must
have had at least five arches, and it may have originally
divided the building into two parallel aisles or wards,
each with an altar at the east end. There are now three
perfectly plain semicircular arches carried on the simple
circular abacus of the pier capitals, with two further
arches eastward, one a 15th-century arch of two orders
completing the nave, and the easternmost a modern arch
south of the chancel. The 15th-century arch and its
pier are said to have been moved from a position across
the aisle. The chancel is modern and the north wall
of the nave, though of 14th-century build, is very much
restored. Only a small portion of the tracery of one of
its two-light windows is original. The west wall of
the nave is also of the 14th century and retains its
contemporary doorway leading into the tower. The
south wall is mid-16th-century, as well as the west
wall of the aisle, both being post-dissolution work,
having fragments of the priory built into the masonry.
They are constructed of a chequerwork of stone and
flint and towards the south are three three-light and one
four-light windows under four-centred heads and hoodmoulds. The external door in the west wall of the aisle
is a two-centred arch within a square moulded frame.
The tower fell down in 1698; it was rebuilt as high
as the belfry stage in 1714 and completed in 1738. (fn. 37)
It is faced with brick, with battlemented parapet and
a string-course below it. It has a stone plinth and
regular quoins of stone on its north face. At its western
angles are large diagonal buttresses of sandstone, which
may belong to an earlier tower but were adapted to the
structure, for one bears the inscription W. Stephen
1714. The belfry stage has plain square openings and in
the west wall in the ground stage is a three-light window
similar to those in the south aisle. The north door is
modern. The tower walls in their upper stages are of
chalk inside the building. The roof is surmounted by
a small octagonal cupola, tile-hung and domed in lead.
There is a lofty weather-vane with a large copper fish.
In the external walls of the tower are set four carved
stones. On the west is a date-stone with the year 1714
and the initials of Nathaniel Trayton, lord of the
manor, and also a medieval shield of the checky coat
of Warenne. On the south is a Tudor rose and crown,
and on the north a stone with a mitre over a shield with
the letters I.A.P.L., presumably the initials of John
Ashdown, Prior of Lewes. Adjoining the north-east
angle of the church are the remains of the gateway to
Lewes Priory (q.v.).
PARISH CHURCH of ST. JOHN the BAPTIST SOUTHOVER
The nave retains its medieval roof trusses, with tiebeams, king-posts, and curved struts. The fittings are
modern, with the exception of the font, which is of
uncertain date.
The most interesting monument in the church is
the memorial to Gundrada wife of William de Warenne, which is now preserved in a modern chapel built
on to the south aisle. It is a slightly tapering coffinlid of black marble, carved with two long bands of
ornament consisting of bunches of stiff-leaved foliage
within curved stems of anthemion form linked by
animal's heads. An inscribed band surrounds the slab
and traverses the spine. The lower part of the stone
is a restoration and the base is modern. It dates from
the latter part of the 12th century and was no doubt
executed on some occasion requiring the re-entombment of the remains of William and Gundrada. The
inscription is as follows:
+STIRPS. GVNDRADA. DVCV[m]. DEC[VS]. EVI. NOBILE.
GERMEN: INTVLIT. ECCLESIIS. ANGLORV[m]. BALSAMA.
MORV[m]. MARTIR. . . . [F]VIT. MISERIS. FVIT. EX. PIETATE.
.MARIA. PARS. OBIIT. MARTHE. SVPEST. PARS. MAGNA.
MARIE. O. PIE. PANCRATI. TES[TIS. PIE]TATIS. ET.
EQ[VI]. TE. FACIT. HEREDE[..]. TV. CLEMENS. SVSCIPE.
MATREM. SEXTA. KALENDARV[m]. IVNII. LVX. OBVIA. CARNIS. ĪFREGIT. ALABASTRV[m]. . . .
The stone had been removed from Lewes Priory and
used in the monument of Edward Shirley at Isfield
Church. It was discovered by Dr. Clarke, rector of
Buxted, and was removed to Southover Church in 1775
at the expense of Sir William Burrell. Seventy years
later, in cutting the Lewes-Brighton railway, the lead
cists containing the bones of William and Gundrada
were discovered on the site of the Chapter House.
The cists are preserved in this chapel, the remains being
buried under Gundrada's tombstone. They measure
respectively 2 ft. 11 in. and 2 ft. 9 in. long; both are
12½ in. wide and are from 8½ to 9 in. deep. They are
ornamented with a fret-work pattern and are inscribed
respectively WILLEM[u]S and GUNDRADA.
The other objects preserved in the chapel include
the torso of a marble effigy of a man in armour of the
late 13th century, discovered in the Priory ruins during
the excavations of 1846. Dr. Mosse (fn. 38) describes it as
follows: 'The figure is arrayed in complete mail (rings set
edgeways) and a surcoat; kite-shaped shield, damaged;
guige; cross-belted sword lies parallel with the shield,
its pommel high up, level with the armpit; the bawdric
horizontal with ordinary buckle fastening. The left
arm is bent upon itself, the hand flat on the breast.
The figure was formerly coloured, of which traces
remain; surcoat blue, bawdric and guige red, with
some gilding; the mail gilt.'
There is a royal coat of arms of George III.
There are eight bells, re-cast in 1839. (fn. 39)
Among the Communion plate is a cup and paten of
the late 17th century, and a paten dated 1709. (fn. 40)
The registers date from 1558, and there is a Churchwarden's Book of accounts (1574–1725).
Advowson
The chapel of St. John the Baptist
outside the gate of the monks of Lewes (fn. 41)
seems to have been originally built
within the precincts of the priory for the use of nonmonastic worshippers, and to have been transferred to
the hospitium (fn. 42) at the gate of the monastery between
1257 and 1263. (fn. 43) It was then a rectory in the patronage of the prior and convent of Lewes, who surrendered
it to the Crown in 1537. (fn. 44)
The advowson was granted to Thomas Cromwell
in 1538, (fn. 45) and after his fall seems to have been retained
by the Crown (fn. 46) and later transferred to the Lord Chancellor. It was sold in 1863 to the Rev. John Scobell, then
rector, and he left it to his son Sanford G. T. Scobell. (fn. 47)
By 1915 the patronage had been acquired by the Church
Pastoral Aid Society, (fn. 48) who still hold it. (fn. 49)
Charities
Elizabeth Ballard, by will dated 17
June 1608, gave an annuity of £4 for
the relief of the poor of Southover.
The endowment is represented by 8 acres of land called
the 'Meadow', situate at Stoneham, and land containing
2 acres 2 roods, being part of Broyle Park, let at annual
rents of £20 and £5 respectively.
Barnham's Charity. By an indenture dated 26 June
1620, Martin Barnham charged land known as Bulbrooke's with a yearly rent charge of 40s. to be distributed among the poorest people of the parish. The
endowment now consists of £83 13s. 5d. Consols
producing an annual income of £2 1s. 8d.
These two charities are now administered, under a
scheme of the Charity Commissioners dated 21 January
1870, by a body of trustees.
The St. James's Charity. By an indenture dated
19 July 1867 land with the buildings thereon situate
in Southover was conveyed to trustees the rent thereof
to be distributed among the poor of the parish. The
land is now let for £23 per annum, which is distributed
in coal to poor inhabitants. Trustees are appointed by
order of the Charity Commissioners.
Henry Cecil Sotheran, by will proved 29 December
1928, gave £500 in augmentation of the rectory of
Southover. The income, amounting to £25 2s. 8d. per
annum, is paid to the rector.
Blunt's Charity. A sum of about £5 per annum is
received by the churchwardens in respect of this charity
and distributed in coal to poor inhabitants.
Henry Smith's Charity. This parish receives yearly
its proportion of the rent-charge on an estate at Tolleshunt D'Arcy, in Essex. The amount, which varies
from year to year, is distributed in kind.