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The present day church is all that remains of the great Cluniac Priory, built in 1078 by William de Warren, Earl of Surrey, and the lady Gundreda his wife. It had also a priory of Grey Friars, a monastery dedicated to St James for thirteen poor bretheren and sisters, and an ‘Hospitium’ dedicated to St Nicholas, which at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries also had thirteen poor brothers and sisters.
The short drum piers and unmoulded arches in the 12th century nave arcade, perhaps divided the men’s from the women’s ward.
John Latter Parsons, a local stonemason of Eastgate, Lewes built the Neo-Norman South Chapel (1847) which houses the bones of William and Gundrada Warenne unearthed in two lead cists by railway navies whilst constructing the Lewes to Brighton Railway. The railway line cuts through the site of the Priory Chapter house. The original black Tournai Marble tombstone from the Priory carved to the memory of the Lady Gundreda lies on the floor of the chapel.
The 1851 Religious Census of St John the Baptist, Southover
Free sittings 167, others 258 = 423
Attendence in Morning 194, Evening 205
John Scobell, Rector of Southover | 
