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The Ionic temple built in memory of Lady Mary Montgomerie in Beauport Woods (photo: Chris Bell).

Beauport Park monument suffering from neglect

While exploring Beauport Park woods, Chris Bell, a retired architect and Zoom Arts member living in St Leonards, discovered a monument, now sadly neglected among a cluster of holiday chalets, built by a previous owner of the woods in the 19th century in honour of his departed wife. The writer laments such poor treatment of our building heritage.

Some time ago, whilst planning a walk in Beauport Park woods, I noticed a symbol denoting a monument on my OS map of the area. This discovery stimulated my curiosity and I decided find out more information on the internet concerning the history of the park, the nature of the monument, and why it was built there. Images of the monument showed it to be a small Ionic temple containing a statue of a lady clad in classical Greek attire.

On the walk, armed with my camera, I trudged up the path leading from the A21. It was a strenuous climb through the dense woods and I felt quite breathless when I reached the top. I gasped even more when I glimpsed the temple through a clutter of shiny mobile holiday chalets.

Gone was the surrounding garden which I saw on the old photographs and it was a shock to see that the temple had been vandalised, as was evident from the missing coping stones. Weeds and shrubs sprouted from gaps in the stonework, enhancing the feeling of neglect and decay.

The temple as it was in 2008 (photo: Julian Guffogg).

Evidence of these changes can be seen by comparison with the above photo of the site as it was in 2008 which was taken by Julian Guffogg who has kindly given me permission to use it.

Painting by the writer depicting Lady Mary gazing mournfully down on her neglected monument.

My research showed that the temple had been built by the estate’s owner as a memorial to his late wife Lady Mary Montgomerie, who died in 1848. How would she have felt, I thought, if she could have seen how her memorial was being treated? I began to imagine her spirit floating above the woods and gazing mournfully at the scene below, and I later used this image in one of my paintings.

Temples similar to the one at Beauport Park were often built by wealthy landowners as a feature on their land. The fashion in the later 18th century and early 19th century was for the ‘picturesque’ in landscape design inspired by painters such as Claude and Poussin, whose paintings often featured distant temples and ruins to give added atmosphere to scenes of classical antiquity.

Pastoral picturesque

The Beauport Park monument follows in the tradition of the pastoral picturesque and its connection with this historic movement makes its restoration and future maintenance even more important.

The grave of Sir Charles Montolieu Lamb in the Church in The Woods, Hollington (photo: Chris Bell).

The owner of the estate, Sir Charles Montolieu Lamb (1785–1860), was an important member of the establishment and held the office of equerry to the royal household. He is buried in the graveyard of the Church in The Woods at Hollington, and his portrait is shown on his gravestone, which is in the form of a large truncated vertical slab.

It is said that he wanted the church, which was in a dilapidated condition, to be demolished and rebuilt on a site nearer his estate. The parishioners, understandably, objected to this idea and eventually funds were found for the church’s restoration.

Horticultural interests

Sir Charles seems to have had horticultural interests, which is evident when one comes across one of the enormous monumental conifers which were planted under his instructions; the largest of these is a 150 foot giant sequoia which is listed as being amongst the highest in the UK.

the foot of a giant sequoia planted by Sir Charles in Beauport Woods (photo: Chris Bell).

These trees were a novelty at that time, having only recently been discovered by plant hunters in California, who then brought the seeds back to the UK.

Sequoias, or redwoods as they are called in America, were renamed by the British as Wellingtonias in honour of The Duke of Wellington, who had only recently deceased.

Beauport Park is even more historically important due to the discovery of Roman remains on the estate. Large slag heaps of smelted iron ore were found, as well as evidence of furnaces, called bloomeries, and other items of the Roman era. The scale of the workings show that this site was the third largest source of iron in the Roman Empire.

Roman bath house

In 1967 archaeologists found the remains of a Roman bath house at the edge of the present golf course. Further investigations were carried out by the Channel 4 Time Team which revealed the bath house to be impressively preserved, and their findings were broadcast on their 1999 series.

The site was eventually put up for sale, but a buyer was not found. Perhaps if it had been sold, and with some further investment, the remains could have been further excavated and restored and the site made accessible to the public (subject to the permission of the landowner).

Unfortunately, at present no evidence of the bathouse exists, as the site has been reburied with earth to ensure its future preservation.

Today the temple has coping stones missing and shrubs growing from gaps between the stonework. It is vital that our building heritage should not be allowed to fall into decay, says the writer (photo: Chris Bell).

Beauport Park subsequently had a few further owners, the most notable of whom was Thomas Brassey, the renowned Victorian builder of railways to whom the house was leased.

A catastrophic fire consumed the house in 1923 and it was rebuilt as a hotel in 1926.

In 2005 Duncan Bannatyne opened a health club on the site and bought the building for use as a hotel in 2007. The remainder of the site was redeveloped as a holiday park and the temple stands at the north edge of this development.

It is fortunate that the estate has been preserved for its present usage, as so much of the historic building stock in the Hastings area has been demolished to allow for redevelopment.

With a bit of imagination, and of course funding, many historic buildings could be converted for other uses and so retained. Inevitably, it all comes down to economics and practicality in the end, but their retention and conversion could provide accommodation which would be a means of easing the present-day housing crisis.

It is vital that our building heritage should not be allowed to fall into decay, as in the case of the Beauport Park temple, but instead, appreciated and cherished so that future generations should have the opportunity to visit and understand better our fascinating local history.

 

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Posted 19:52 Thursday, Aug 11, 2022 In: Heritage

2 Comments

  1. Heather Grief

    Rother DC should be approached about the Lady Montgomerie monument and its surroundings; the caravan park owners should be made aware of their duty to protect it and its setting – assuming it is listed – and this should be done if it is not listed.
    Re. the Roman Bathhouse, I excavated some of it in 1972. Thanks to its out-of-the-way location, its walls survived intact to a height of six feet, at least in part, and many of the roof tiles were also in situ, where the roof had fallen in. It would make a very good tourist attraction if restored a bit. I’m not sure who owns the land on which it sits, but if it’s Duncan Bannatyne, he might well be interested in doing this. It could probably be returned to working order – even the sand in the base of the hypocausts (under floor heating system) was still present.

    Comment by Heather Grief — Monday, Aug 15, 2022 @ 14:49

  2. chris hurrell

    Worrying article about neglect of heritage assets. Sadly not an isolated case here in Hastings. The Iron Age Hill fort on the East Hill which is a Scheduled Monument has had a number of unauthorised works carried out without Scheduled Monument Consent by Rocklands Caravan Park. HBC and Historic England have both declined to take any action against the developer.

    Park holidays web site for Beauport shows the Monument as a feature. It is a shame they can’t be bothered to maintain it and use the area surrounding it as a storage area for caravans.

    The Monument might be worth taking up with Rother Council who are the caravan site licencing authority? It is uncertain whether caravans are allowed to be positioned in this location under the terms of the caravan site licence and planning permissions granted.

    https://www.parkholidays.com/our-parks/sussex/beauport/caravan-holiday-homes-for-sale

    Comment by chris hurrell — Saturday, Aug 13, 2022 @ 13:56

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