A Home with a History: how a trail of clues led to the revival of The Southover Gallery, an artistic hub and home in Lewes

Charlie Collins didn’t set out to become a gallerist. Her journey to it was circuitous – and owed much to lucky coincidence. Living in Kentish Town, north-west London, in 2021, she and Matt decided to move out of the capital in search of space and slowness. “We’d been looking to move to Lewes for ages. But tons of people were looking for something a bit more bucolic at the time, which meant there was a lot of competition. We initially bought a cottage from Inigo, which had been doused in paint colors by Atelier Ellis. It was beautiful. But when we had our second son we knew we needed more space.”

After a series of setbacks, serendipity struck: “We ended up doing a direct house swap with a couple who had lived here for 25 years. Like us, they had two sons, but they were looking to downsize after their children had grown up, while we were looking to upsize. At the time when we were looking, I remember saying to Matt that I wanted magic. He kept asking what I meant. But this was it!”

And so the family moved in, unaware of its remarkable history. “We didn’t know about its past – we just loved its bones. We didn’t even know that it had been a gallery in the 1970s,” Charlie recalls. The starting point of research was a bold wallpaper (‘Welsh Dragon’) designed by artist-designer Peggy Angus. Notably absent from art history, Angus was a multi-disciplinary artist, designer and teacher, whose work spans several media, from ceramics to murals and, indeed, ceramic murals. Although she’s almost forgotten today, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum holds several pieces created by Angus, including the same ‘Welsh Dragon’ design.

A missing piece of the puzzle was found in the garage: a hand-painted sign for ‘The Southover Gallery’. From the 1970s to the 90s, the house was owned by Deirdre Bland, who was described in her obituary in The Independent as "a famous beauty and a beacon of style, both in herself and in the art gallery she ran in her home in Sussex”.

Deirdre moved to Lewes in 1973, turning her home into The Southover Gallery. For 14 years she displayed works by those associated with Charleston and the Bloomsbury Group, including Duncan Grant (who owned nearby Charleston with his partner, Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf), Quentin Bell and John Nash. She also used the space to platform up-and-coming artists, and was known for her exuberant private views. “She’d handwrite letters to all of her network in London, who’d all come piling down to her shows,” Charlie explains. “She even hosted [Bloomsbury Group painter] Duncan Grant’s 90th birthday exhibition here.” In the 1990s, Deirdre’s friend Peggy Angus visited with the intention of helping to make the home a more joyful place for Deirdre to spend her final years. Hence the appearance of ‘Welsh Dragon.’

Uncovering such a rich, artistic history propelled Charlie and Matt’s decision to reignite The Southover Gallery, evolving it in a way that built on their own experience. Charlie, who trained in reiki after a career at high-end fashion reselling platform Vestiaire, has found in The Southover Gallery a home for her practice. “I’m not sure it’s exactly how Deirdre would have done it, but it does feel a bit like we’ve been lured in to help revive what it once was. It was the story that inspired us and, after I’d been on maternity leave, I thought: it’s the perfect thing for me to do.

“There wasn’t a huge amount for us to change in the house when we moved in. We used the same Atelier Ellis paints as our last home here, because we’d loved living with them so much, and then matched other colours to the pigments that had existed in the house. We painted the walls in the room with the Welsh Dragon pattern red, unaware that Deirdre had referred to it as the red room because the wallpaper had wrapped around it entirely. So there were small coincidences like that.

Since (re)opening The Southover Gallery’s doors last year, Charlie and Matt have hosted exhibitions with works from brilliant local artists and held an event honouring Peggy Angus for International Women's Day in 2024 (which was recorded and uploaded to their website). They supply works from a varied roster of makers, including characterful ceramics from Edinburgh-based Celia Wood, paintings by East Sussex’s Chiara Perano, and the ecstatic characters of Moira Frith, who practices in the north-east of England. A pop-up in the gallery on the 20th September will see tarot readings, food, homewares and even bespoke facials.

“It’s not even been a year yet - but it keeps getting bigger and bigger. When we host exhibitions, it takes over the whole house,” Charlie explains. “Lewes has a lot of people who remember what the original Southover Gallery was like. It’s been brilliant to be able to be community-led in that regard, and to be able to bring people back into the house. I do feel like Deirdre brought us here to revive the gallery, in one way or another.”

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