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Beaulieu, Hampshire

Historical Description

Beaulieu or Bewley, a village and a parish in Hants. The village stands at the head of a creek, 7½ miles SE of Lyndhurst Road station on the L. & S.W.R., and 7 NE of Lymington. It is a quaint old-fashioned place, and was formerly of more note than now. It has a post office under Southampton, and has fairs on 15 April and 4 September. Area of the parish, 8521 acres of land and 1397 of foreshore and water; population, 864. The creek at the village goes 4½ miles south-south-eastward to the Solent, is navigable hither, and receives at the head a streamlet of 5 miles, coming from the vicinity of Lyndhurst, and called variously the Beaulieu and the Exe. Palace House, an ancient residence, is the seat of Lord Montagu. A Cistercian abbey was founded here, in the neighbourhood of the village, in 1204, by King John; had the privilege of sanctuary, and gave shelter to Margaret of Anjou and to Perkin Warbeck. The gate house, the refectory, the cloister walls, the dormitory, and the ruins of the sacristy, fratry, and chapter-house still remain. The refectory is now the parish church, measures 125 feet by 30½, and shows the characters of late Early English. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Winchester; gross value, £365 with residence. Patron, Lord Montagu. There are three church mission chapels.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Ancient CountyHampshire 
LibertyNew Forest 
Poor Law unionNew Forest 

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.


Church Records

The register dates from the year 1651.


Churches

Church of England

St. John the Evangelist, Park

The district church of St. John the Evangelist, at Park, erected in 1906, at & cost of £2,000, is of red brick with Bath stone facings, and will seat 200 persons; there is a memorial stone to Henry John, 1st Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, d. 4 Nov. 1905, who caused the church to be built.

The Blessed Virgin and Child (parish church)

The church of the Blessed Virgin and Child, formerly the refectory of the abbey, is a building in the Early English style, 125 feet long by about 30 feet wide, with a Perpendicular roof, and lighted by tall lancets, some of which are filled with stained glass: the principal entrance is at the north end, in the cloister garth, where there is a good doorway and three lancets above it: the reading pulpit in the west wall, one of the most beautiful examples now extant, is approached by a stair and passage formed in the thickness of the wall, with a fine open arcading carried on shafts of Purbeck marble; the pulpit itself projects from the wall, and is ornamented with carved foliage: there is a monument to Mary Do, 1651: the church affords about 450 sittings.


Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.


Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Beaulieu from the following:


Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Hampshire (County Southampton) is available to browse.


Maps

Online maps of Beaulieu are available from a number of sites:


Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Hampshire newspapers online:


Visitations Heraldic

The Visitations of Hampshire, 1530, 1575, & 1622-34 is available to view on the Heraldry page.

DistrictNew Forest
CountyHampshire
RegionSouth East
CountryEngland
Postal districtSO42
Post TownBrockenhurst

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