A very special country house hotel...
Built in the neo-Jacobean style of many
Sussex country houses of the period, South Lodge is a hotel with an
established and colourful history. It was developed in
several stages by Frederick Du Cane Godman.
Our five star hotel in Sussex was originally built on the site
of an existing modest dwelling in 1883, and great care
was taken not to disturb the magnificent camellia between the
dining room windows. He began his last of the substantial additions
in 1911 when the Drawing Room Wing was constructed.
Well travelled
Born in 1834, Frederick Du Cane Godman
was a remarkable Victorian imaginative collector, a
gentleman explorer, a man of boundless energy and rigorous
scholarship.
The third son of Joseph Godman, a
partner in Whitbread & Co., Frederick inherited an ample
fortune which allowed him to travel the world extensively
and later, to amass one of the most important collections of Iznik,
Hispano-Mauresque and Persian pottery in the world, which can now
be viewed in the British Museum.
He also had a lifelong scientific fascination
in all aspects of natural history and in 1876 conceived the idea of
publishing the ‘Biologia Centrali Americane’; a
monumental classification of the natural history of the
Sub-Continent which took 20 years to complete.
Avid Gardeners
Frederick’s second wife, Dame Alice shared her
husband’s enthusiasm for gardening and helped gather a superlative
collection of rare orchids, alpine plants, magnolias and
Rhododendron hybrids - many of which can still be seen around
the grounds today. The Godman children, Eva and Edith inherited
their parent’s love of travel and flora and fauna. During their
long and devoted guardianship of their father’s estate they
preserved South Lodge as it has been in his day and maintained the
gardens as best they could in the harsher economic climate after
World War II.
After the last of the Godman family died in 1982, the house
became South Lodge Hotel in July 1985 with Exclusive Hotels
investing heavily in the property which they continue to do.