Wessex Lane Halls is a halls of residence complex owned by the University of Southampton. It is situated in the Swaythling district of Southampton, approximately one mile north-east of the university campus in Highfield.
The complex is formed of South Stoneham House, Connaught Hall and Montefiore House. There are over 1800 undergraduate and postgraduate students living in Wessex Lane Halls.
University of Southampton students living in Halls are supported by the Residences Support Service, who are available throughout the night. The students organise their own social events, sports teams and deal with welfare issues through the JCR (Junior Common Room) committee which is elected each year. The bars are run by the students union.
The complex is served by excellent transport links, with regular Unilink buses heading north to Southampton Airport (and Eastleigh at peak times) and south to Southampton City Centre and hourly trains from nearby Swaythling railway station.
South Stoneham House
South Stoneham House was acquired, with South Hill (situated some two miles northwest of Wessex Lane), in 1920 to house male students at University College Southampton. It was originally the manor house of the Parish of South Stoneham, which stretched along the River Itchen from the Bargate in Southampton City Centre to Eastleigh. The house itself was constructed in 1708, as the family home of Edmund Dummer, the former Surveyor of the Navy, and has been attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor, while its gardens were laid out after 1722 by Capability Brown (though very little of the original landscaping remains).
Tradition prevailed in the house, with a collegiate atmosphere as gowns were expected to be worn to dinner and lectures and curfews were enforced.
By 1924, there was distinct pressure on space in the halls of residence, and it was clear that more rooms were needed. The existing halls were full and so South Stoneham and South Hill were extended by covering their outbuildings.
During the Second World War, the Highfield location of the college meant it was directly in the war zone itself. With Southampton being attacked, the halls of residence were also under siege: at South Stoneham windows were blown in by bombs. For much of this time, the college operated a School of Navigation, based in the communal rooms of Stoneham House.
In 1964, a concrete tower extension was added to the hall, incorporating a bar and dining hall area, both now out of use. The extension was designed as a stop-gap measure until the full development of the Montefiore and Glen Eyre sites could be pushed through, with an anticipated lifespan of just 15 years. Over four decades on, the tower was only finally removed from the university's housing stock in 2012. South Stoneham has 180 rooms over its 17 floors (16 of which are residential), although it is all closed to the public. For the majority of Stoneham's existence as a residence, students were fully catered for in the building's own canteen and dining hall. In latter years, as the building's use was wound down, residents were part-catered for and ate in Connaught's Galley Restaurant. Residents shared small kitchen and bathroom facilities. Much controversy had surrounded the continuous use of South Stoneham Tower and in 1997 a large wooden collar was added to the base of the tower to prevent crumbling concrete falling onto staff and students below. As the tower was originally built using asbestos, its decommission and deconstruction has provided a technical stumbling block to redevelopment of the South Stoneham site. Physical disassembly would be hugely expensive, while explosives cannot be used due to the proximity of private houses and the Grade II listed South Stoneham House. Stoneham Tower was deemed unsafe in 2012, and remained unused for accommodation until its demolition.
The university held public exhibitions in June 2018 and released a strategic document detailing the future plans for the Wessex Lane site. This will involve refurbishing and repurposing South Stoneham House, including replacement student accommodation keeping within the distinctive setting of the site. South Stoneham Tower was finally demolished in early 2022.