Southwick House is a Grade II listed 19th-century

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

of the Southwick Estate in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, England, about north of

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

. It is home to the

Defence School of Policing and Guarding The Defence School of Policing and Guarding is the training centre for the Service Police of the British Armed Forces. It consolidates training for the Royal Navy Police, Royal Military Police and Royal Air Force Police in one location, assuring co ...

, and related military police capabilities.

History

Early history

The house was built in 1800 in the late

Georgian style Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchs of the House of Hano ...

, to replace

Southwick Park Southwick Priory or Our Lady at Southwick () was a priory of Augustinian canons founded in Portchester Castle on Portsmouth Harbour and later transferred north to Southwick, Hampshire, England. It ceased at the Dissolution of the Monasterie ...

house. The three-storey house is distinct for its two-storey foyer lit from a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

, and a series of elliptical rooms. A semi-circular

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

is centered on the house's

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

of paired

Ionic columns The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

World War II

The house became important during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In 1940, the estate owners allowed the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

to use the house to accommodate overnight pupils of the Royal Navy School of Navigation, , which was based in Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. In 1941, after heavy bombing of the dockyard, the house was requisitioned and became the new home of HMS ''Dryad''. In 1943, with the planning for

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

already underway, the house was chosen to be the location of the advance or forward command post (Sharpener Camp) of the

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF; ) was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in north west Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the commander in SHAEF th ...

. Because of this, HMS ''Dryad'' was moved out of the house onto further land requisitioned from the estate.

D-day preparation

Southwick_house_D_day_map_room_2019-9-11

Southwick_House_map_room_in_operation_1944

In 1944, in the months leading up to D-Day, the house became the headquarters of the main allied commanders, including Allied Supreme Commander

General Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

, Naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Ramsay and Army Commander-in-Chief

General Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and ...

. The large wall maps that were used on D-Day are still in place in the house in the main map room. Southwick house - D day departures 1944-6-6

Southwick_House_-_Eisenhower_&_Cronkite_1963

After HMS ''Dryad''

In 2004 the functions of HMS ''Dryad'' were transferred to in

Fareham Fareham ( ) is a market town at the north-west tip of Portsmouth Harbour, between the cities of Portsmouth and Southampton in south east Hampshire, England. It gives its name to the Borough of Fareham. It was historically an important manufact ...

and the site reverted to its original name of Southwick Park. Since 2005 it has been home to the tri-Service

(formerly the Defence College of Policing and Guarding).

Listings

In 1987, the house was recorded as

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

. The following year, the detached clock tower – a three-stage

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

structure with a slate roof – was also Grade II listed.

References

Bibliography

*Beevor, Antony; D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, Viking Publications,

External links

High resolution Gigapixel image of the Southwick House D-Day mapThe D-Day Story – information about visiting Southwick House
*{{cite web , url=http://historyarticles.com/southwick-house/ , title=Southwick House – Where D-Day Began , first=Jerome M , last=O'Connor , publisher=historyarticles.com

Country houses in Hampshire Museums in Hampshire Military and war museums in England Operation Overlord museums in the United Kingdom Grade II listed houses in Hampshire