Beauport Park

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 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. In 1967 Gerald Brodribb, using divining rods, 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. 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.

The first mention of Beauport Park is when General Sir James Murray is shown on local records as paying rates on some woodland. He built the house between 1763 and 1766, subsequently adding to the estate until it comprised about 5,000 acres (20 km²). Murray, who had served in Canada, named the estate after Beauport in Canada. It was Murray who started the tradition of planting rare and unusual trees on the estate.

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. 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. An Ionic temple was built on the estate together with two life-size memorials which still remain.

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