Beauport Park is a house near Hastings, East Sussex, England. It is located at the western end of the ridge of hills sheltering Hastings from the north and east.
Beauport Park is a house near Hastings, East Sussex, England. It is located at the western end of the ridge of hills sheltering Hastings from the north and east.
In 1862, [1] the Rector of Hollington Church found a huge slag heap on the site, evidence of probably the third largest iron works in the whole Roman empire. [2] In 1967, Gerald Brodribb, using divining rods, [3] and Dr Henry Cleere, an expert on ancient iron-working, began work that uncovered an impressively preserved bath house that was saved during the development of the golf course. [2] It was fully excavated in the early 1970s. Although it was scheduled as an Ancient Monument, at present it has no public access. Excavations in 1980 around the bath-house produced post-holes which seem to form part of a pre-Roman roundhouse. [4]
The first mention of Beauport Park is when General Sir James Murray is shown on local records as paying rates on some woodland. [5] He built the house between 1763 and 1766, [5] subsequently adding to the estate until it comprised about 5,000 acres (20 km2). Murray, who had served in Canada, named the estate after the Beauport in Canada. [5] It was Murray who started the tradition of planting rare and unusual trees on the estate. [5]
Following Murray's death in 1794, Beauport Park was then purchased by James Bland Burgess who served as Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to William Pitt. [5] An obelisk which stands opposite the front of the hotel is in memory of James Burgess' second son, Ensign Wentworth Noel Burgess, who was killed in 1812 in the Peninsular War, aged 18, whilst leading an assault on the citadel of Burgos in Northern Spain. In 1821, James and his eldest son Charles changed their name to Lamb in honour of John Lamb, a benefactor of theirs. [5] An Ionic temple was built on the estate together with two life-size memorials which still remain. [5]
By 1860, the estate was owned by Sir Charles Lamb's son, Archibald, who leased the house to Thomas Brassey, a leading railway engineer of his day. [5] After Thomas Brassey died in 1870 the lease was inherited by his son who later became Lord Brassey. [5]
In 1923 a fire broke out and despite efforts by firemen from Battle and Hastings taking water from nearby ponds, the fire spread rapidly and the entire building was gutted. [5] The house was rebuilt in 1926. [5]
Little is known about the house during the period that follows its reconstruction in 1926 up until World War II, but at the beginning of the war, it was an underground citadel. It consisted of tunnels and chambers, built by the Canadian Army and was intended as a hiding place for a secret resistance army which would have fought behind the German lines following the expected invasion of Britain. [5] After the war, the house became a hotel. [5]
In 1983 the hotel was bought by Ken Melsom, David Robinson and Helena Melsom [6] and in 2005, Duncan Bannatyne opened a health club on the estate. Bannatyne went on to buy the hotel as well in 2007. [7]
The Beauport Park Archaeological Trust was formed in 1996. [1] [2] In 1999 it was the subject of a Time Team dig. [8] In 2007 the baths, set in five acres, were put on the market at £300,000 by Colin Henshaw of "Wild England". [9] As of 2013 [update] it is a Scheduled Monument at Risk and its condition was described by English Heritage as "Extensive significant problems" with "Deterioration - in need of management". [10]
The estate currently comprises the hotel, the health club, a riding school, a caravan park, a 186-acre (0.75 km2) golf course and 164 acres (0.66 km2) of surrounding woodland. [5]
Hastings is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, 24 mi (39 km) east to the county town of Lewes and 53 mi (85 km) south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place 8 mi (13 km) to the north-west at Senlac Hill in 1066. It later became one of the medieval Cinque Ports. In the 19th century, it was a popular seaside resort, as the railway allowed tourists and visitors to reach the town. Today, Hastings is a fishing port with the UK's largest beach-based fishing fleet. It has an estimated population of 92,855 as of 2018.
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Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey, was a British Liberal Party politician, Governor of Victoria and founder of The Naval Annual.
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Arthur Gerald Norcott Brodribb was a cricket historian and archaeologist.
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Charles Dawson was a British amateur archaeologist who claimed to have made a number of archaeological and palaeontological discoveries that were later exposed as frauds. These forgeries included the Piltdown Man, a unique set of bones that he found in 1912 in Sussex. Many technological methods such as fluorine testing indicate that this discovery was a hoax and Dawson, the only one with the skill and knowledge to generate this forgery, was a major suspect.
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Hastings Museum & Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery located in, Hastings, East Sussex, England. Established in 1892, it originally resided in the Brassey Institute, but moved to its current location in 1927. As of 2019 it had around 97,000 objects of local history, natural sciences, fine and decorative arts, and world cultures.
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Church in the Wood, officially known as St Leonard's Church and originally as St Rumbold's Church, is an Anglican church in the Hollington area of the town and borough of Hastings, one of six local government districts in the English county of East Sussex. Although Hollington is now a large suburb, consisting mostly of postwar residential development, the church has stood in isolation in the middle of an ancient wood since it was founded in the 13th century—almost certainly as the successor to an 11th-century chapel. Restoration work in the Victorian era has given the Early English Gothic-style building its present appearance, but some medieval work remains. Legends and miraculous events have been associated with the church, and its secluded situation has been praised by writers including Charles Lamb. The church is a Grade II Listed building.
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