South Stoneham House

South Stoneham House is a Grade II* listed former manor house in Swaythling, Southampton, United Kingdom. It was the former seat of the Barons Swaythling before the family moved to the nearby Townhill Park House. The building is owned by the University of Southampton, and was used as a hall of residence, part of the Wessex Lane Halls complex. It has been derelict since 2005.

Originally known as Bishop's Stoneham, the records of the manor date from the 11th century, but the current house was constructed in the early 18th century. It has been attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor with the gardens and landscaping attributed to Lancelot "Capability" Brown. The house is located close to the River Itchen and Monks Brook and the manor's previous owners include the Willis-Fleming family of nearby North Stoneham and Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling.

After Montagu's death in 1911 his son elected to continue living at nearby Townhill Park House, and South Stoneham was sold in 1921 to University College Southampton (now the University of Southampton) for use as student accommodation. In 1964 the building was considerably altered by adding a 17-storey tower and a kitchen and dining complex to the building. The tower was deemed unsuitable for continued use and in 2004 the university submitted plans to demolish it with the intention of converting the original house into a conference venue and building new blocks of flats on the remaining landscaped gardens. The house and tower ceased to be used in 2005 and the house was boarded up in 2009. The university placed the property up for sale in 2015 but failed to find a buyer. The 2020 planning application for demolition of the tower included plans, agreed with Historic England, to build student accommodation and put the manor house back into active use. The tower was demolished in early 2022. The house remains boarded up, described as "a pathetic sight" in the new edition of Pevsner's The Buildings of England.

A charter dating from 990 relates to the manor of South Stoneham and during building works in the area immediately around the current house and grounds, archaeological evidence of a Saxon settlement was found. The manor of South Stoneham was originally called Bishop's Stoneham, and was held by the Bishop of Winchester at the time of the Domesday Book. The original parish of South Stoneham covered more than 8,000 acres (32.37 km²; 12.50 sq mi), and extended along the eastern side of the River Itchen from the site of the present day Eastleigh in the north to just above Northam Bridge in the south, and from Swaythling to the outskirts of the original town of Southampton on the western side of the river; it included the tithings of Allington, Barton, Pollack, Shamblehurst, and Portswood. Other than St. Mary's Church (which is close to South Stoneham House but predates it considerably) and a few adjacent houses, there was no village of "South Stoneham"; the closest village to the house was Swaythling, now a suburb of Southampton.

The tenants of the manor apparently took their name from it; a Gregory de South Stoneham (or Gregory de Stoneham) is recorded there in 1236 and 1249, and in 1315 the manor was held by Nicholas de South Stoneham (son of Guy de South Stoneham). In 1348 Thomas de Stoneham and his wife Alice were lord and lady of the manor, and five heiresses of theirs – possibly daughters – held the manor in 1367. However, that year they quitclaimed it to Adam le Chaundle.

The history is somewhat incomplete after that point, but records do exist of the manor being passed from Nicholas Fitz John to William Nicholl in 1436 and from John Langhorn to Thomas Payne in 1478. After Payne's death the manor passed to John Langhorn's son William, and it remained in the Langhorn family until Stephen Langhorn, or Langher, sold it to John Capelyn for £140 in 1553.

Capelyn sold the manor to William Conway in 1600, who sold it to Edmund Clerke in 1612; Clerke's son inherited the manor in 1634 but only survived for a further two years, at which point the manor passed to Edmund Clerke's 8½-year-old grandson, another Edmund. This Edmund Clerke was the Sheriff of Hampshire and clerk to the Signet in 1671. Clerke the younger married the daughter of Giles Frampton, who took control of the manor after Clerke's death and sold it to Edmund Dummer, a former Surveyor of the Navy, in 1705.

Dummer purchased the South Stoneham estate, comprising approximately 300 acres (120 ha), for the sum of £3,400. The house was constructed in 1708 as Dummer's family home, and its design has been attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor; the listed building description published by Historic England states that Hawksmoor was "almost certainly" the architect. The actual construction was carried out by Dummer's uncle, Thomas Dummer of London. Edmond Dummer was from nearby North Stoneham and had been baptised in St. Nicolas' Church there. The grounds of the house comprised 110 acres, with 5 acres of water.