Southover Grange is open

Posted on April 21, 2017June 1, 2018 by photograph

Southover Grange is open

The renovation of Southover Grange is complete and awaiting its first event. It looks beautiful and glamorous and I envy the couples who will be using it to celebrate their weddings. I began documenting the restoration of this Tudor manor in the centre of Lewes as the builders were moving in and returned to the site several times over the following 12 months. It is a rambling house with an interesting history and an important role in the fabric of the town. This was the registry office for many years (and is now again) so it was a place of weddings and the recording of births and deaths.

One of the most significant aspects of this project for me was how my photographs triggered memories that people felt compelled to share. I heard from numerous residents about their personal connections to the house, including several whose parents were caretakers and for whom the upstairs flat was home. A couple of registrars also came forward with anecdotes about years of working at the Grange and the countless weddings they performed. I like that a building can hold so many positive associations for a community and that my photographs have the potential to bring them to life. My exhibit of this project is still showing at Pelham House in Lewes until the 23 May. All my Southover Grange photographs can be found here.

Renovations at Southover Grange, Lewes

Posted on November 18, 2016September 25, 2018 by photograph

Renovations at Southover Grange, Lewes

I came across this stairwell at the very end of my most recent shoot of the renovations at Southover Grange in Lewes. I am documenting the building works of this Tudor manor for the owners, East Sussex County Council, so they can keep local residents up-to-date with the progress. As always with this type of job, I never know what I will find to photograph when I go on site. Sometimes it will be dramatic and obvious and sometimes it will be a subtle detail. I was pleased when I found this one.

I liked the split between the beautifully lit clean white staircase on the right to the bare cracked brick wall on the left, with the slightly incongruous blank window of blue and green panes. Even the ceilings are contrasting: white and ascending towards the light to dark splintered wooden lathes supported by struts. Next time I visit, this split will be unified. It will all be beautifully smoothed over and finished with everything in its place. More photographs from this shoot can be found here.

Subscribe to my blog to receive my photo of the week directly to your inbox.

Beautiful rubbish

Posted on June 30, 2016October 8, 2018 by photograph

Beautiful rubbish

The builders have been litter-picking at Southover Grange, the Tudor manor in Lewes that I am photographing. But this is rubbish with a difference. This detritus from the past is in fact a cigarette packet-sized window into another era. The workers have collected a very small treasure trove of artefacts from the first decades of the 20th century: a toothpaste carton, a razor blade wrapper, shoe polish, match boxes, cigarette packets of varying designs. Not only are these lovely little objects fascinating as relics of bygone product design, they also start my imagination going. Who was smoking these “wild woodbines” 70 years ago? What were their lives? How did they spend their time?

It is this curiosity that drives my passion for photographing renovations. Old buildings always hold windows into the past – hand chisel marks on stonework revealed beneath ancient lathe and plaster, layers of colour and wallpaper uncovered below peeling paint. By documenting the restoration of buildings, I keep these clues available to us once all has been glossed over and the buildings have begun their next incarnation. All photographs of Southover Grange can be found here.

If you have a workplace, building project or event that you are thinking of photographing, please get in touch. I deliver photographs that delve deeper than showing just the surface of things. Subscribe to my blog to receive my photo of the week directly to your inbox.

Tag: Tudor architecture