A Conveyance (lease and release) dated 30 January 1691 from Harbert Springett to John Spence the younger of South Malling deposited at East Sussex Record Office[2][3] refers to the manor or farm of Ovingdean being late Geere.

From 1945 the Grange was occupied by former Mayor of Brighton and local farmer Frank Masefield Baker, although, owing to the ill health of one of its inhabitants, it eventually fell into disrepair.

After it had remained empty for eight years, the new owners, Dr Harry Brünjes and wife Jacquie, undertook extensive renovations in 1993 to restore it to its former state.

The ownership of the manor estate from 1066 until today is known from legal conveyances and church documents, but knowledge of the identities of the tenant farmers is patchy.

In 1857, the popular novelist W. Harrison Ainsworth wrote Ovingdean Grange: A Tale of the South Downs,[8][9] in which he described how the future King Charles II stayed there for less than 24 hours before escaping to France in 1651, fathering a child in the process.