(510) Beauclerk of Bestwood Lodge, Dukes of St. Albans

Beauclerk, Dukes of St. Albans 

This post has been divided into two parts. This first part consists of my introduction to the family and its property, and a description of the houses built or acquired by the Beauclerks. Part 2 gives the biographical and genealogical details of the Dukes of St. Albans from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Three main cadet branches of the family (the Beauclerks of Little Grimsby Hall; the Beauclerks of St. Leonard's Lodge; and the Beauclerks of Winchfield Hall) have been identified, and these will be subject of separate future posts.

The Beauclerk family descends from the elder illegitimate son of King Charles II (1630-85) and his most famous mistress, Nell Gwyn (1650-87). Nell's background is obscure, but her illiteracy and ready Cockney wit suggest she was brought up in London's poorest districts. As a teenager she became an orange-seller and then an actress in the London theatres. The casting of women in female roles on the stage was a novelty in Restoration London, and the (usually good-looking) young women who took up this new career were widely suspected of immorality. Coupled with her personal background, this helps to explain why she achieved less ready acceptance at Court than the king's other mistresses, who were ladies, even if they were ladies of negotiable virtue.

Nell Gwyn, by Simon Verelst

The king never felt able to give Nell a peerage, as his did with his other two leading mistresses, Barbara Villiers  (Duchess of Cleveland) and Louise de Kerouaille (Duchess of Portsmouth). Nell seems not to have particularly cared about that, but did want titles for the two sons she bore the king: Charles (1670-1726) and James (1671-81), who died while at school in Paris. The two boys had neither surnames nor titles until 1676, when Nell is said to have made a scene about the matter: the king responded by calling them Beauclerk (pronounced 'Boh-clare') and making the elder boy Earl of Burford and Baron Heddington, while James was given the rank of an Earl's younger son and the courtesy title Lord Beauclerk. Charles was further promoted to the Dukedom of St. Albans at the beginning of 1684, just eight days after the death without heirs of Charles' old friend, Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, had made the title available.

In the 1670s and 1680s Nell Gwyn secured for herself and her son both pensions and property. In London, she was given a lease (and in 1676 the freehold) of 79 Pall Mall, a house which was convenient for the king's court and which had (perhaps coincidentally) previously been occupied by the Earl of St. Albans. At Windsor, a new house (Burford House) was built for her to the south of the castle, which was a substantial residence although it did not have an attached estate. In 1681 the king granted her the 3,723 acre Bestwood Park estate in Nottinghamshire, a hunting preserve in Sherwood Forest, where there was a medieval semi-timbered hunting lodge with 38 rooms. This estate, which remained in the family until 1940, was never, however, regarded as a place of residence until 1860s, when the 10th Duke built a large new house there. These properties descended, on Nell's death in 1687, to the young Duke of St. Albans, but they did not generate much income, and even with the Duke's pensions and official positions his income is thought to have peaked at around £10,000 a year in the early years of Queen Anne's reign, which was hardly sufficient to sustain ducal splendour. Charles II's other illegitimate sons married great heiresses, but the Duke of St. Albans married Diana de Vere, daughter of the 20th and last Earl of Oxford, who was regarded as a great beauty and who had a pedigree stretching back to the Norman Conquest, but whose material expectations as heiress to her father were very limited. The marriage produced twelve children, including nine sons, eight of whom survived to adulthood, although all three of the daughters seem to have died young. Descendants of the three eldest sons have all inherited the Dukedom in turn and their careers are described in the genealogy in part 2 of this post, while two of the younger sons founded cadet branches of the family which will be the subject of future posts. 

The 1st Duke was in a position of some political delicacy at the time of the Glorious Revolution in 1689, since he was a Stuart by blood even if he was illegitimate. However, his uncle James II seems to have managed him badly, urging him to convert to Roman Catholicism and planning to send the young man to Hungary with a Catholic tutor in the face of his disinclination. He was given command of a regiment in 1687 (aged 17!) and although the Duke seems to have been in Europe at the time of William III's invasion, his regiment was one of the first to join King William's cause. During the 1690s, the Duke became a close associate of William III. He was a Whig in politics, and thus eclipsed during the latter part of Queen Anne's reign, but he maintained his principles, supported the Hanoverian Succession and was close to George I. Although there was a rift between George I and his son in which the Duke and his wife became involved, the 2nd Duke was even closer to George II and Queen Caroline than their fathers had been. Up until the time of the 2nd Duke's death in 1751, therefore, royal goodwill, offices and pensions combined to keep the Dukes of St. Albans in the style expected of their rank, but that was to change radically in the next generation. 

Over more than two centuries, the Dukes of St. Albans often married well, to heiresses whose wealth or property could have put the family on a sound financial footing, but through misfortune in the matter of heirs, or through habits of indolence or dissipation, these inheritances have slipped through their fingers. The 3rd Duke is the earliest instance of this. His father and his uncle, Lord William Beauclerk, had married the two daughters and co-heiresses of Sir John Werden, 2nd bt., who owned estates in Lancashire, Cheshire and Berkshire. Sir John's second wife died at much the same time as the 1st Duke, in 1726, and his sons-in-law at once became apprehensive that he would marry again and produce a son who would inherit the Werden estates to the destruction of their own expectations. Sir John did marry again - twice - but his third wife had no children and left him £30,000, while his fourth wife produced only a daughter, who seems to incurred her father's displeasure and was cut out of his will. Sir John survived both his Beauclerk sons-in-law, living until 1758, by which time the bulk of his property had already been made over to his daughter Charlotte, widow of Lord William Beauclerk, and her son Charles Beauclerk (c.1728-75), whose son George (1758-87), succeeded briefly as 4th Duke of St. Albans in 1786. The 3rd Duke was not totally cut out of Sir John's will, but he was only a minor beneficiary, receiving a life interest in the site of Durham House in London and an annuity. He had already given signs of dissolution and excess by siring an illegitimate child while still a schoolboy at Eton and by the failure of his marriage after less than three years, and Sir John was perhaps disinclined to reward such conduct. 

The 3rd Duke was married in 1752 to Jane Roberts, heiress of Sir Walter Roberts, 6th bt., of Glassenbury Park (Kent), whose father was already dead, and who brought him estates in Kent (Cranbrook, Goudhurst, Hunton and Brenchley), Surrey (Streatham and Peckham) and Leicestershire (Wigston Magna, Frisby and Galby), with the latter passing to him outright on his marriage. But within two and a half years their marriage had foundered on the grounds of his cruelty and unfeeling treatment of his wife, leaving him with no legitimate issue. Jane received an income of £2,000 a year and the use of the secondary house on the Kent estate (Gennings at Hunton), while the 3rd Duke retained a life interest in the Kent and Surrey property, which provided a useful addition to his income in view of the failure of his expectations from his grandfather. Once separated from his wife, the 3rd Duke embarked on a 'glittering crescendo of feats of incompetence quite unparalleled in the lives of any other dukes in the eighteenth century, and involving mistresses, elopements, debts, bankruptcy, fleeing from creditors, self-imposed exile, imprisonment', and a further five illegitimate children. By the time the 3rd Duke died he was pressed on all sides by creditors, and had sold almost all his freehold property. Only Bestwood, which was entailed, survived to be passed on to his first cousin once removed, George Beauclerk (1758-87), 4th Duke of St. Albans. As we have seen, the 4th Duke was the ultimate principal beneficiary of the Werden family estates, but he died young and without issue. The heir to the Dukedom and to Bestwood was his father's first cousin, the 2nd Baron Vere of Hanworth, who was not descended from the Werdens, so the 4th Duke bequeathed his share of the Werden estates to his father's elder sister, Charlotte Drummond. She was the widow of the immensely rich banker, John Drummond, so this was a quixotic and sentimental gesture which the 5th Duke can hardly have appreciated.

Aubrey Beauclerk (1740-1802), 2nd Baron Vere of Hanworth, who became 5th Duke of St. Albans in 1787, was the son of Lord Vere Beauclerk (1699-1781), the third son of the 1st Duke, who had made a career in the Navy and been created a peer in his own right in 1750 as Baron Vere of Hanworth. Lord Vere was another member of the Beauclerk family who made an advantageous marriage, for Hanworth Park in Middlesex was an estate which he and his wife, Mary Chambers, inherited from her father in 1736. They were also among the heirs of Mary's aunt, Lady Betty Germaine (1680-1769), who had already settled £10,000 on Mary at the time of her marriage, and although they did not, as they hoped, inherit the Drayton House estate in Northamptonshire from her, she left each of them £30,000 in Government stocks and her niece a £20,000 cash legacy as well. When their son Aubrey came into the Dukedom and the Bestwood estate in 1787, it must have seemed that the Dukedom was at last allied to the resources required to support the dignity. Unfortunately, the conjunction was short-lived. His wife died in 1789 and from 1793 Hanworth Castle was leased out. In 1797 it burned down, and in order to rebuild it, the 5th Duke sold a significant collection of art which he had acquired in Italy. The new house was much smaller than its predecessor, but was almost finished by the time of the 5th Duke's death in 1802. His eldest son, Aubrey Beauclerk (1765-1815), 6th Duke of St. Albans, inherited, but in 1811 sold much of the estate (not including the new house). He died in 1815, leaving a widow and an infant son, the 7th Duke. While the title and entailed estate passed to his son, his unentailed property and personal estate, including the house at Hanworth, was effectively left to his widow absolutely. Had the infant 7th Duke survived to adulthood, his mother would no doubt have left him the bulk of her estate, but he did not: they both died of a fever on 19 February 1816. To make matters worse, the 6th Duke's two younger brothers had been stirring up trouble over his will and his widow's conduct. They accused her of having an affair and suggested that the 7th Duke might be her lover's son and not her husband's. Whatever the truth of this (and it seems quite plausible and circumstantial), the Duchess not unnaturally resented the accusations, and made a will leaving all her property to her sister, Mrs. Laura Dalrymple, rather than passing it back to the Beauclerks. Once again, the Beauclerks had contrived to lose control of an inheritance gained through marriage.

With the death of the infant 7th Duke the title and entailed estate passed to his uncle, Lord William Beauclerk (1766-1825), the second son of the 5th Duke, who became the 8th Duke of St. Albans. He had pursued a naval career, retiring as a Commander, and lived from 1816 in a rented house in Surrey called Upper Gatton. He married twice, on both occasions to heiresses. His first wife, Charlotte Carter-Thelwall (d. 1797), brought him the Redbourne Hall estate in Lincolnshire, together with lands at Pickworth (Lincs) and elsewhere, but their only child died in infancy. His second wife, Maria Jenetta Nelthorpe (d. 1822), brought him Little Grimsby Hall (Lincs) and also a further fourteen children, twelve of whom survived to maturity. It is in this generation of the family that there first becomes apparent a certain mental instability which became more marked later: two of the 8th Duke's children died in a mental hospital at Ticehurst (Sussex). To accommodate his large family, he built a new wing at Redbourne Hall, which became the principal seat of the family for the next half-century. Little Grimsby Hall was bequeathed to his second surviving son, Lord Frederick Charles Peter Beauclerk (1808-65), whose descendants owned it until 1943 and will be subject of a future post.

When the 8th Duke died in 1825, his title and estates at Bestwood, Redbourne and Pickworth descended to his eldest son, William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1801-49), 9th Duke of St. Albans. Although William was regarded at the time as both unintelligent and ill-informed, it was hoped that he would marry Fanny Gascoyne, a great friend of his sister Charlotte, who would have brought him £10,000 a year, though in the end she chose Lord Cranborne, heir to the Marquess of Salisbury. In 1824 the 8th Duke took his son to a party at Holly Lodge in Highgate (Middx), which was the seat of Harriot Coutts, the exceedingly rich widow of the banker Thomas Coutts, in the hope that he might meet an eligible young woman there. The 8th Duke, himself a widower for a second time, may also have nursed hopes of securing Mrs Coutts as his third duchess, but unexpectedly the relationship that flowered was between Mrs Coutts, and his son, who was half the lady's age.

Harriot Coutts (d. 1837), later Duchess of St. Albans

Like Nell Gwyn, Harriot had begun life as an actress, but her beauty and intelligence captivated Thomas Coutts, who admired and supported her for years before his first wife died and he was free to marry her in 1815. When he died in 1822 she was his principal legatee, inheriting at least half a million pounds and possibly more, and becoming the senior partner in Coutts Bank. Money opens many doors, but in Regency England it did not open them all, and there were plenty of ladies in high society who would not receive her because of her low birth. It is said to have been a mutual interest in Shakespeare which first kindled her friendship with the 9th Duke, and although for a long time she did not encourage him, they were married in 1827. It must, at some level, have been a marriage of convenience, for Harriot gained the title of Duchess which made her harder to ignore socially, and the Duke benefited from her almost limitless wealth: as a wedding present she gave him a cheque for £30,000 and the manor of Woodham Walter (Essex), valued at £26,000. Harriot died in 1837 and left her husband £10,000 a year, Holly Lodge and her town house at 80 Piccadilly, all for life, but the bulk of her estate passed to Thomas Coutts' granddaughter, Angela Burdett (1814-1906), who took the additional name Coutts and became one of the greatest 19th century philanthropists.

The 9th Duke married again in 1839, this time to a younger woman who could provide him with a family: a son and heir was born in 1840 and a daughter in the following year. In the late 1840s the Duke, who had deteriorating eyesight, had a hunting accident and suffered a blow on the head which left him subject to epileptic fits, and he died in 1849, when his son was just nine years old. It may not have been an auspicious beginning, but William Amelius Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1840-98), 10th Duke of St. Albans, was to become the most energetic and admirable of his family, active in politics, locally and nationally, estate management, and sporting and literary pursuits. He inherited the family estates at Bestwood, Redbourne, Pickworth and Woodham Walter, but sold the latter two properties to fund the building of the first really grand country house the family had ever owned at Bestwood Lodge, choosing as his architect the inventive Samuel Sanders Teulon, who delivered a characteristically unconventional building. He also invested in developing Bestwood Colliery, exploiting the rich seam of coal which lay under the Bestwood estate, and creating an important new source of revenue for the family. He married twice and had children by both marriages, but he was singularly unfortunate in his sons, in whom the mental instability referred to earlier returned with a vengeance. His eldest son, Charles Victor Albert Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1870-1934), 11th Duke of St. Albans, suffered from severe depression and paranoid delusions, and was confined from 1899 in the same mental hospital at Ticehurst where his great-aunt and great-uncle had been treated. The 10th Duke's youngest son, Lord William Huddleston de Vere Beauclerk (1883-1954) was sent to Eton, but set fire to a building there, and spent his life confined in mental institutions. Only the middle son, Osborne de Vere Beauclerk (1874-1964), who succeeded his elder brother in 1934 as 12th Duke of St. Albans, was comparatively normal, and even he recognised in himself a susceptibility to mental illness, which he sought to control throughout his long life. Perhaps as a result, he exhibited an inconsistency of manner which meant he had few friends, and he became increasingly eccentric as he got older. He married, but he and his wife lived increasingly separate lives and had no children, so that when the 12th died, the title passed to a second cousin, descended from a younger son of the 8th Duke.

The 10th Duke's second wife came from an Irish family, and in 1880 she inherited Newtown Anner (Co. Tipperary) from her mother. With the 11th Duke in an institution and his affairs in the hands of trustees, Bestwood Lodge was leased out from 1915 (and sold in c.1943) and Redbourne Hall was sold in 1917. Newtown Anner therefore became the country seat of the 12th Duke by default. After he and his wife separated, it was the Duchess who was usually resident at Newtown Anner, while the Duke lived chiefly in London. The Duchess died in 1953 and for a time the Duke took more interest in the place, but in 1958 he made the estate over to Col. John Silcock (1913-2005), his wife's daughter-in-law's second husband, and he ended his days at Holker Hall in Lancashire, the seat of his nephew.

Burford House, Windsor, Berkshire

The house later called Burford House seems to have been built or remodelled in the 1670s by King Charles II for his mistress, Nell Gwyn, on a site to the south of Windsor Castle which had formerly been part of the castle gardens or vineyard. It is less a country house than a satellite of the castle, but it was the main residence of the first two Dukes. The architect is unknown, but the Office of Works team was not, apparently, involved in its construction, as there are no payments relating to the project in the Works accounts until 1678, the year when Nell Gwyn actually moved in, when one John Bodevin was paid £100 for unspecified repairs and Antonio Verrio was paid for decorating the staircase with scenes from Ovid. In 1680, the freehold was granted to trustees for Nell Gwyn, with remainder to her son by the king, then known as the Earl of Burford, hence the name of the house. The building is shown in a number of views of Windsor and the castle in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Burford Lodge, Windsor: detail of the Kip engraving showing the house in the foreground, c.1708

Johannes Kip made an engraving after a painting by Leonard Knyff in about 1708, which depicts the house, with the castle in the background. This view, and a painting of c.1745 in the Royal Collection which shows the view down the Long Walk from the castle, give a fairly clear idea of what the house was like. It was a fairly plain rectangular two-storey red brick house, rather typical of its date, with a double pile plan and an eleven bay elevations to the east and probably to the west as well. The two bays at either end of the elevations were brought slightly forward, and a wooden cornice supported a hipped roof with dormers. The house was approached from the road to the west through a forecourt with a pair of porter's lodges either side of the entrance. On the east side was an extensive garden with a plain fifteen-bay brick greenhouse set at right-angles to the house, which would seem to have been demolished by the time of the view of c.1745.

Burford Lodge: the house as remodelled c.1779-82, can be seen in the background of this view of Queen's Lodge by James Fittler, 1783.

In 1749, the house was described as "a stately and handsome seat with beautiful gardens that extend to the park wall…..[the 2nd Duke] is at present making farther improvements by opening a view into the High Street of the town". The 3rd Duke, who was a great spendthrift, sold Burford House to King George III in 1779 for £4,000, and it became an annexe to the Queen's Lodge that the king constructed just to the north, and was renamed Lower Lodge. The two houses became the royal family's residence at Windsor (the castle then being old-fashioned and in poor repair), and the younger princesses lived in the Lower Lodge. By 1782 the house had been remodelled, with the conversion of the dormered attics into a third full storey, and the addition of a castellated parapet and a coat of stucco. The works were supervised by Sir William Chambers as Comptroller of the Royal Works, and the detailed plans were drawn up in his office, but it is believed that the design originated with the King himself, who had a considerable reputation as an amateur architect: a reputation not obviously justified by the barrack-like quality of the Queen's Lodge and Lower Lodge!

Burford House: the buildings as remodelled by Edward Blore c.1842. 

After Queen Charlotte’s death in 1818, the Lower Lodge became the property of Princess Sophia, who gave it up to her brother, the Prince Regent. During his extensive transformation of the castle and park at Windsor, he demolished the Queen’s Lodge in order to improve the view of the Long Walk, and it was intended that Burford House would also be pulled down. This never happened, however, and it was further altered by Edward Blore in c.1842, who gave it a more substantial Gothic refronting and made some additions. It reverted to the name Burford House, and became the married quarters for workers in the Royal Mews. In the 1940s there was yet another remodelling, when it was adapted to form eleven separate flats, and very few if any features now remain to remind the visitor of its 17th century origins.

Descent: granted 1680 to Nell Gwyn (1650-87); to son, Charles Beauclerk (1670-1726), 1st Duke of St Albans; to son, Charles Beauclerk (1696-1751), 2nd Duke of St. Albans; to son, George Beauclerk (1730-86), 3rd Duke of St. Albans; sold 1779 to King George III and given to Queen Caroline (d. 1818); to daughter, HRH Princess Sophia (1777-1848); given to King George IV (1762-1830) and descended with the Crown as part of the Windsor Castle estate.

Bestwood Lodge, Nottinghamshire

A royal hunting lodge in Sherwood Forest was built in 1284 close to the site of the present house, and a park was enclosed around it in 1349 which is marked on the remarkable medieval map of Sherwood now at Belvoir Castle. The lodge was built of timber and lath and plaster and had a slate roof, and in 1573 and again in 1593 the keeper of the park, Thomas Markham (d. 1606) made repairs to the lodge. Further work was done in 1627, and by 1650 the lodge contained 38 rooms but was in disrepair again. It was estimated that if it was pulled down the value of the materials would be only about £100 more than the cost of demolition. By 1681, King Charles II had granted a lease of the park to his mistress, Nell Gwyn, and before her death in 1687 she had acquired the freehold. The property passed to her son, the Duke of St. Albans, and it descended in his family, but since successive dukes lived elsewhere and were usually short of funds, the timber-framed Bestwood Lodge survived until the mid 19th century, no doubt with some alterations and further repairs. In the late 18th century, Lord Amelius Beauclerk had built what sounds like a habitable folly near the old house: a 'strange architectural toy' in the form of a 'naval castle' which 'closely resembled a warship' and was the exact length of a naval quarterdeck, with rooms inside modelled on ship's cabins. Both houses were pulled down in 1860 by the 10th Duke, who came of age in 1861. The first wife of the 9th Duke had been the widow and principal heiress of the millionaire banker, Thomas Coutts, and although she left the bulk of her fortune to Coutts relatives, the annuity she left to her husband meant that the 10th Duke was in a better position to build extravagantly than any of his predecessors.

Bestwood Lodge: the entrance front and forecourt in 2021. Image: Andy. Some rights reserved.

The new Bestwood Lodge was designed on a slightly higher site than its predecessors, which commanded a view over the city of Nottingham. The architect was the vigorous and crazily inventive Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812-73), and Bestwood is one of his five largest houses. It was constructed in red brick with generous stone dressings, and is essentially in an early Gothic style, with an exceptionally spiky skyline. Photographs of the house when it was first built show that it had then a visual coherence and a picturesque composition, especially as seen from the west, which is not apparent now, when injudicious later alterations have obscured much of Teulon's original scheme. 

Bestwood Lodge: the house as first built, c.1865.

Bestwood Lodge: the entrance front after the construction of the conservatory block c.1870.

The house occupies a platform from which the land falls steeply away to the north-east and south-east, and it is therefore approached from the west. The drive leads into a forecourt with the main block of the house to the east and an enclosing service wing to the north, which terminates in a building with a crowstepped gable-end and a bellcote, suggestive of a chapel but in fact housing the servants hall (a frivolity of which The Ecclesiologist disapproved). The forecourt is now also enclosed on the south by a second wing which was first built about five years after the house was finished as a conservatory range, but which was radically remodelled as a drill hall after 1896, with very little sensitivity, in the most lumpen timber-framed manner. A rough brick octagonal tower with a tall roof was added at the junction with the main house at the same time. 

Bestwood Lodge: detail of the porch when the house was first built, c.1865.

Fortunately, the approaching visitor does not notice the wing particularly, for the eye is caught and held by the extraordinary porch on the main block, which scampers up the house with great agility in a tour-de-force of what Mark Girouard termed 'acrobatic Gothic'. Flying buttresses clasp the porch and a canted oriel window above it, and the line of the porch is further carried up by a second canted bay at attic level and then by a slender tower with a pyramidal roof embellished with lucarnes and a tall weathervane. The archway of the porch itself is decorated with carved heads of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men carved by Thomas Earp, who also executed panels of scenes from local history elsewhere in the building.

Bestwood Lodge: the south front in the late 19th century.

Bestwood Lodge: the south and east fronts as first built, c.1865.

The other principal facades of the building are those to the south and east. The south side is less playful than the entrance front, but hardly more restful. It is composed of six irregular bays, and has two storeys with gabled attics. Every bay stands in a different plane to its neighbours and is topped by a gable, tower or dormer of different form. The windows are mostly of plate tracery, but some are two lights and others three, while those on the end bay are wrapped around a canted two storey bow. The staircase windows on the first floor of the second bay project down into the ground floor and have stepped bases, while a slim turret with a conical cap projects towards the right hand end. Despite all this irregularity there was originally a detectable balance, well short of symmetry, between the left and right hand halves of the facade, which was spoilt by the addition of the drill hall wing, that stands forward of the rest of the elevation.

Bestwood Lodge: the east front after the addition of the staircase tower.

The east side of the house has a recessed centre between two projecting wings, but is designed to express clearly that the left-hand part, mostly of three storeys, with large plate tracery windows and elaborate gables and dormers, belongs to the polite part of the house, whereas the right-hand section, mostly of two storeys, with much smaller and rather ugly square windows and tiny wooden dormers, belongs to the service wing. An exceptionally muscular tower, with two rows of lancet windows following the rise of the staircase inside, was added to the polite end of the elevation, probably in the 1870s, and further unbalances the composition.

Bestwood Lodge: ground floor plan (omitting the conservatory/drill hall wing) (after Jill Franklin).

Although Bestwood Lodge could not be called a small house, its plan suggests that it was perhaps conceived of more as a hunting lodge than as a full-blown country house. A considerable part of the footprint is taken up by a large central courtyard between the main rooms and the service wing, and the former comprise only a hall, drawing room, dining room, billiard room and study. The original interiors were badly damaged by a fire in 1885, and the best preserved room is now the two-storey, top-lit inner hall, which has a really chunky fireplace and a two-storey screen across one end. 

Bestwood Lodge: inner hall. Image: Best Western Hotels Ltd.

The gardens were landscaped by Teulon and a 'Mr. Thomas' - perhaps the estate gardener - with terraces and lawns amid woodland, but were altered in the early 20th century and later. The Alexandra Lodge, NW of the house, is attributed to Teulon, but may not have been built until after his death, as it carries dates of 1877 and 1878. It is of brick and takes the form of a pair of lodge houses either side of an archway with a timber-framed room over the archway under a tall roof. 

Bestwood Lodge: Alexandra Lodge. Image: Andy. Some rights reserved.

The house was generally let in the early 20th century, and was put on the market to pay the death duties arising from the death of the 11th Duke in 1934. Efforts to sell it in 1940 and 1943 were unavailing, but it was eventually sold to the Government, which had already requisitioned it for use as the headquarters of Northern Command. It remained in military use until the early 1970s, when the county and district councils combined to purchase the wooded parkland to the north-west, which became Bestwood Country Park in 1973. The house itself was converted into a hotel, now part of the Best Western Group. In a slightly ironic twist, the servants' hall, whose chapel-like appearance so distressed The Ecclesiologist, is now used as a wedding venue.

Descent: Crown granted 1681 to Nell Gwyn (1650-87); to son, Charles Beauclerk (1670-1726), 1st Duke of St Albans; to son, Charles Beauclerk (1696-1751), 2nd Duke of St. Albans; to son, George Beauclerk (1730-86), 3rd Duke of St. Albans; to first cousin once removed, George Beauclerk (1758-87), 4th Duke of St. Albans; to first cousin once removed, Aubrey Beauclerk (1740-1802), 2nd Baron Vere of Hanworth and 5th Duke of St Albans; to son, Aubrey Beauclerk (1765-1815), 6th Duke of St. Albans; to son, Aubrey Beauclerk (1815-16), 7th Duke of St. Albans; to uncle, William Beauclerk (1766-1825), 8th Duke of St. Albans; to son, William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1801-49), 9th Duke of St. Albans; to son, Rt. Hon. William Amelius Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1840-98), 10th Duke of St. Albans; to son, Charles Victor Albert Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1870-1934), 11th Duke of St. Albans; to half-brother, Osborne de Vere Beauclerk (1874-1964), 12th Duke of St. Albans, who sold c.1943 to HM Government.

Hanworth Palace and Hanworth Park House, Middlesex

Immediately south of the medieval church of Hanworth was a moated hunting lodge acquired by Henry VII in about 1507, which according to Camden was Henry VIII's 'chief place of pleasure', and was referred to as Hanworth Palace. The Office of Works accounts indicate extensive works took place on the house, gardens and park in 1507-09. In 1532 the king gave the house and park to Anne Boleyn, and workmen at Hampton Court were diverted to fitting up new interiors and other works. Some of the exterior walls and chimneys were embellished by a painter with 'antike work', and Antony Toto and John de la Mayn set up and repainted 'certen antique heds brought from Grenewiche to Hanworthe at the kyng's comandment'. The site still has the remains of large Tudor walls and fireplaces, interpreted as being remains of the royal kitchens, but much of the site was built over in the 20th century to create a cul-de-sac called Seymour Gardens. Two later garden buildings in the entrance court at Hanworth have terracotta roundels with classical busts similar to those set into the walls of Hampton Court, and these could be the panels brought from Greenwich in 1532, but they are said to have been acquired in 1759 by Lord Aubrey Beauclerk and to have come from the Holbein Gate in Whitehall.

Hanworth Palace: the house in the late 17th century. Image: London Metropolitan Archives

The house was evidently remodelled in the 17th century by Sir Francis Cottington (c.1579-1652), 1st bt. and 1st Baron Cottington, who described his improvements to a friend:

"There is a certain large room under the new building, with a fountain in it, and other rare devices, and the open gallery is painted by the hand of a second Titian. Dainty walks are made abroad, in so much that the old porter with the long beard is like to have a good revenue by admitting strangers". 

The only illustration of the house at this time is a little hard to interpret, but seems to show a timber-framed house twelve bays square. This house was rebuilt or remodelled by the Chambers family, who had a ceiling painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), more usually known as a portraitist. By 1738, it was a three-storey block of eight (7+1) bays, with a full-height canted bay in the centre. To one side was a lower and evidently older range, of two storeys with gabled dormers, but with the windows remodelled to match those of the main block. Above the centre of the main block was a tall cupola.  This house burned down in 1797, and was almost totally destroyed apart from the stable block, which survived and was converted into flats, now called Tudor Court, c.1924. 

Hanworth Palace and church in 1738, from an estate map. Image: London Metropolitan Archives ACC/1023/379.

The stable block was either rebuilt or remodelled for the 1st Lord Vere of Hanworth to the designs of Sanderson Miller (who never visited the site but supplied a design at the request of a mutual friend in 1750), and consists of a two-storey L-shaped brick block of symmetrical design, with battlemented corner towers. The present Gothic windows are a later alteration, since they are not shown on the drawing of the park below. 

Hanworth Palace: a drawing of c.1801 showing the new house and the stable block as originally designed by Sanderson Miller in 1750. 
Image: Yale Center for British Art.

Hanworth Park: the stable block in the mid 20th century, after conversion to flats.

A new house was built between 1798 and 1802 on the original site to the designs of an unknown architect; this was a much smaller five bay, three-storey block recorded in an early 19th century drawing. This in turn was replaced by a larger new house on a site about half a mile to the north in 1828 for Henry Perkins, the London brewer (a partner in Barclay & Perkins), who was the tenant of the estate and later bought the freehold.  This house just about survives today, and has a long frontage of eleven bays in London stock brick, grouped 2-2-3-2-2, of two storeys above a high basement. In the centre is a portico with four Greek Doric columns approached up a grand flight of steps. All along the front, and above the portico, is a two-storey cast-iron veranda. The end pavilions have hipped roofs, and in the centre is a low pediment with incongruous and presumably later decorative bargeboards. To the rear of this block are two long wings. That on the east is perhaps a contemporary service wing, but that on the west was rebuilt in a loosely Italianate style by the Perkins family c.1860. It has groups of narrow arched windows, and terminates in a stumpy campanile. Inside, there is a large entrance hall and behind it a top-lit staircase hall with cast-iron balustrades. In the 1860s wing there is a high-ceilinged ballroom with elaborate plasterwork, and other rooms have the remains of good cornices and other decoration.

Hanworth Park House: the house in its current derelict condition.

In 1917, the grounds of the house became a private aerodrome belonging to J.A. Whitehead, and from 1929 this became the London Air Park, which operated until the Second World War. The house was used as a clubhouse, and some of the present decoration may be neo-Georgian work of c.1935. After the War, the grounds were acquired by the local Urban District Council, and opened as a public park in 1959. The house became an old people's home, and has been empty since this closed in 1992. Proposals for conversion to hotel use came to nothing, but more recently there has been a scheme for the house to be adapted for a museum and other community purposes, with enabling development in the grounds.

Descent: Sir John Crosby (d. 1475); to son, Sir John Crosby (d. 1501); to kinsman Peter Christmas, whose trustees sold c.1507 to Crown; given 1532 to Anne Boleyn (d. 1536) and reverted to Crown; given 1544 to Queen Catherine Parr (d. 1548) when it again reverted to Crown; granted in 1558 for life to Anne Stanhope (c.1510-87), widow of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset; freehold sold to tenant, Sir Francis Cottington (c.1587-1652), 1st bt. and 1st Baron Cottington, whose estates were assigned in 1649 to the regicide John Bradshaw, but recovered in 1660 by his nephew, Charles Cottington; sold 1670 to Sir Thomas Chambers (d. 1692); to son, Thomas Chambers (d. 1736); to daughter Mary (d. 1783), wife of Lord Vere Beauclerk (d. 1781), 1st Baron Vere of Hanworth; to son, Aubrey Beauclerk (1740-1802), 2nd Lord Vere of Hanworth, and later 5th Duke of St. Albans; to son, Aubrey Beauclerk (1765-1815), 6th Duke of St. Albans; to widow, Grace Louisa (1777-1816), Duchess of St. Albans; to sister, Mrs. Laura Dalrymple; to niece, Lady Ailesbury, who sold 1840 to the tenant, Henry Perkins; to Algernon Perkins (d. by 1866); sold to Messrs. Pain & Bretell, solicitors, of Chertsey; who sold c.1873 to Alfred Lafone (c.1821-1911); to son, Alfred William Lafone (d. 1938) who sold sold 1929 to National Flying Services/London Air Park; sold? 1935 to National Flying Syndicate; sold c.1956 to Feltham Urban District Council; transferred 1965 to London Borough of Hounslow... Gary Cottle.

Redbourne Hall, Lincolnshire

A substantial but now much subdivided house, the architectural history of which is not well understood, although there is a fair amount of archival evidence on which to draw. The main body of the building consists of two wings at at right-angles to each other. The earlier, aligned roughly east-west, was apparently originally of two storeys, and has seven windows on the ground and first floors. Panelled interiors suggest this block dates from the 1720s or 1730s, and it was probably built for the Carter family after they sold Kinmel Hall (Denbighs.) in 1729, paid off their considerable debts, and made Redbourne their seat. Two carved relief panels now in the outbuildings to the east, depicting Harvest and Autumn, one of which is dated 1734, may be an indication of the date of the building. This part of the house was given a third storey, with only three windows on the courtyard front, in the late 18th or early 19th century, and a lower two-storey kitchen wing was added to its right in c.1820-30.

Redbourne Hall: view of the house from the entrance court in 1958. The three-storey block in the centre is the oldest part of the house.
Image: Historic England.

Redbourne Hall: view of the west front of the house by J.C. Nattes, 1795. Image: Lincolnshire Archives.

The west wing consisted of a miscellaneous collection of buildings when Nattes drew his view of the house in 1795. By then it had acquired a single-storey curved bow at the right hand end, which can probably be identified with payments for the construction of a bow window in 1770. It was built in brick and later raised to provide a bow on the first-floor room as well, an alteration which is marked in a change in the colour of the brickwork. In 1778 a carver and gilder called Hudson and a joiner called Bunning were paid for work, but what they did is unclear. 

Redbourne Hall: the west wing in 1958. Image: Historic England.

The range was apparently rebuilt, except for the bow window, in the first quarter of the 19th century, and is now of two storeys, which are almost the same height as the three storeys of the main block; it contains three principal rooms on the ground floor. The range is constructed of squared limestone blocks, but the window surrounds are of red brick; an unappealing effect which may imply the range was originally stuccoed or painted. The range has seven bays, the right hand two of which are masked by the earlier bow window. The ground-floor drawing room behind the bow now has plasterwork decoration of the 1820s. At the far end of the room, opposite the bow window, is a semicircular recess, which in 1958 still contained a mahogany serving buffet, which must have been made for the room and implies that this was originally the dining room. Another room, which was in use as the dining room in 1958 but was probably originally the drawing room, has a Rococo plasterwork ceiling which must have been preserved when the wing was rebuilt. A terminus ante quem for the completion of the early 19th century refitting is provided by payments made for furnishings to John Lovitt of Hull and for chimney pieces to John Earle in 1827-8. A new staircase hall was built to the south of the west range in the later 19th century.

Redbourne Hall: entrance lodges and gateway, attributed to John Carr. Image: Brian Westlake. Some rights reserved.

In 1773 and again in 1784 John Carr of York was paid for making plans for the Rev. Robert Carter-Thelwall, but nothing about the house suggests his hand. What is very much in his style is the castellated boundary wall and gateway built at the entrance to the estate in 1776, and indeed the RIBA has a drawing attributed to Carr which shows a similar gateway, albeit with Batty Langley-ish quatrefoils and arched recesses in place of the cross-shaped arrow slits and carved panels that decorate the Redbourne gateway. There is also a range of Gothick outbuildings at the back of the hall which could have been built to Carr's design. The carriage house of 1854, now partly incorporated into the house, is built of yellow brick and has a large lunette window, like a miniature Kings Cross station. The west wing now forms a single dwelling, but the rest of the house and outbuildings are now divided into flats and small houses.

Descent: sold 1613 to Oliver and Thomas Style... Sir Thomas Style; to four daughters, who in 1708 obtained an Act of Parliament for the division of their inheritance, with Redbourne passing to Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Carter (d. by 1703) of Kinmel (Denbighs); to son, William Carter; to son, Thomas Carter; to brother, Rev. Robert Carter-Thelwall (d. 1788); to daughter, Charlotte (1769-97), first wife of William Beauclerk (1766-1825), 8th Duke of St. Albans; to son, William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1801-49), 9th Duke of St. Albans; to son, Rt. Hon. William Amelius Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1840-98), 10th Duke of St. Albans; to son, Charles Victor Albert Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1870-1934), 11th Duke of St. Albans; sold 1917... Sir Arthur Colegate; requisitioned for RAF 1939...

Newtown Anner, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary

Newtown Anner: the house in the late 19th century. Image: Tipperary Museum of Hidden History.

A nine bay late Georgian house, with a two storey centre of three bays and taller, three-storey wings to either side that break slightly forward. The date usually associated with the house is 1829, but this may refer only to the addition of the wings, reputedly built for Sir Ralph Bernal (later Bernal Osborne) MP. The central doorcase has engaged columns and a large semi-circular fanlight over the door and sidelights. On the left hand end of the house is a two-storey bow window. Inside, there is a fine saloon. The grounds are enhanced by a shell grotto, well-preserved walled garden and a ruined temple.

Descent: Clonmel Corporation sold 1774 to ?? Osborne...Catherine Isabella Osborne (1819-80), wife of Ralph Bernal Osborne (1808-82); to younger daughter, Grace (1848-1926), wife of Rt. Hon. William Amelius Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1840-98), 10th Duke of St. Albans; to younger son, Osborne de Vere Beauclerk (1874-1964), 12th Duke of St. Albans.; given 1958 to Col. John Eric Durnford Silcock (1913-2005); sold c.2000..Nigel Cathcart.

Principal sources

Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 2003, pp. 3459-64; VCH Hampshire, vol. 4, 1911, pp. 109-12; M. Girouard, 'Acrobatic Gothic', Country Life, 31 December 1970, pp. 1282-86; P. Beauclerk Dewar & D. Adamson, The house of Nell Gwyn, 1974; H.M. Colvin et al., The history of the King's Works, vol. 5, 1660-1782, 1976, pp. 323-40; S. Gillott, 'Bestwood: a Sherwood Forest Park in the 17th century', Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, vol. 89, 1985, pp. 57-74; Sir N. Pevsner, J. Harris & N. Antram, The buildings of England: Lincolnshire, 2nd edn., 1989, pp. 608-09; J. Roberts, Royal Landscape, 1997, pp. 163-70; B. Wragg, The life and works of John Carr, 2000, pp. 196-97; D. Crook, 'The foundation of Bestwood Lodge', Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, vol. 106, 2002, pp. 71-72; D.L. Roberts, Lincolnshire Houses, 2018, pp. 228, 388; C. Hartwell, Sir N. Pevsner & E. Williamson, The buildings of England: Nottinghamshire, 3rd edn., 2020, pp. 128-29.

Location of archives

Beauclerk family, Dukes of St. Albans: Redbourne estate deeds and papers, 17th-20th cents [Lincolnshire Archives RED and 2RED]; Bestwood Park estate records, 1785-1841 [Nottingham University Library, BP]; Hanworth estate deeds and papers, 17th-20th cents, legal and family papers [London Metropolitan Archives, 1005; LMA/4245; Acc/0918] 

George Beauclerk, 3rd Duke of St. Albans:  Glassenbury Park estate and household papers, 18th century [Kent Archives Centre, U410]

Coat of arms

Quarterly, 1st and 4th grand quarters, the arms of Charles II (1st and 4th, France and England quarterly, 2nd Scotland, 3rd, Ireland) all over a sinister baton gules, charged with three roses argent, barbed and seeded proper; 2nd and 3rd, quarterly, gules and or, in the first quarter a mullet argent.

Can you help?

• Does anyone know of an image of any kind of the medieval hunting lodge at Bestwood that was pulled down in 1860, or of the 'naval castle' built by Lord Amelius Beauclerk in the late 18th century?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 25 March 2022 and updated 27 April 2022.

(509) Beauchamp (later Beauchamp-Proctor and Proctor-Beauchamp) of Langley Park, baronets

Proctor-Beauchamp of Langley Park 

Edward Beauchamp (1612-82) was the descendant of a family of yeomen farmers at Upton near Burford (Oxon), who can be traced back to the mid sixteenth century, and who were perhaps distantly related to the Henry Beauchamp who acquired the manor of Burford in 1439.  Edward had a large family, and two of his younger sons became carpenters, while his sixth son, Ephraim Beauchamp (1661-1728), with whom the genealogy below begins, became a stone mason. The vicinity of Burford was noted for its stone quarries, many of which were in the hands of the Strong family, a dynasty noted for the construction of some of the most important buildings in Oxford and the Cotswolds in the 17th century. Thomas Strong (c.1634-81) moved to London after the Great Fire of 1666 created unprecedented opportunities for craftsmen in the building trades, and when he died he left his business to his much younger brother, Edward Strong senior (1652-1724), who married into the Beauchamp family and became Ephraim's brother-in-law. Ephraim Beauchamp was almost certainly apprenticed to Edward Strong, and he first appears in London in 1683 receiving a payment for work on Strong's behalf. In 1684 Ephraim was made free of the Masons' Company, and he thereafter set up his own building business, working in brick as well as stone, and continued to trade until about 1707. His most notable project was a 17-year contract to build part of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, a job which he undertook in partnership with another (and much older) Burford mason, Christopher Kempster.

Ephraim Beauchamp's career made him a comparatively wealthy man and was reflected in a rise in social status from 'mason' to 'gentleman' and ultimately to 'esquire', and in his acquisition of property at Tottenham (Middx) and Monken Hadley (Herts); in his later years he lived in retirement at Hertford. He married three times, and produced at least ten children, all of whom seem to have predeceased him. His eldest son, Thomas Beauchamp (c.1687-1724) was the only one to live to maturity and marry, and was killed by a fall from his horse while visiting his in-laws at Epsom (Surrey). Thomas' wife was Anne (1693-1745), the daughter of William Proctor, citizen and fishmonger of London, who brought him the handsome portion of £10,000. Their only son was William Beauchamp (1722-73), who succeeded his grandfather in the Tottenham and Monken Hadley property at the age of six and came of age in 1743. Within the next two years he not only married, but inherited the Langley estate in Norfolk from his maternal uncle, George Proctor (d. 1744), and was raised to a baronetcy. He took the additional name Proctor by Act of Parliament as a condition of his uncle's legacy. 

In 1747, Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor, 1st bt., was elected one of the two MPs for Middlesex, and he continued sit for that county until 1768. In the election of that year he no doubt expected to be quietly elected again, but two days before the poll the radical John Wilkes declared himself a candidate. With no property in the county, no money to support an expensive contest, and no time to canvass the constituency, it seemed impossible that he could succeed, but the merchants and shopkeepers rallied in numbers to his cause and he pulled off an unlikely victory. Benjamin Franklin, an acute observer, was puzzled that it had happened: "It is really an extraordinary event to see an outlaw and exile, of bad personal character, not worth a farthing... carrying... the principal county". At a bye-election the following December caused by the death of the second MP for the county, Beauchamp-Proctor stood again, this time against John Glynn, the lawyer who acted for Wilkes and shared his political standpoint. A bitter and long-drawn-out contest, which is said to have cost Beauchamp-Proctor as much as £10,000, resulted in a victory for Glynn, and Beauchamp-Proctor did not stand for Middlesex or any other constituency again. King George III was so grateful for Sir William's valiant efforts to defeat Wilkes, that he intended to raise him to the peerage, but Sir William died before the patent passed the Great Seal, and his son declined the honour.

Sir William was twice married and produced thirteen children, of whom just six survived to adulthood. The baronetcy and Langley Park descended to Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor (1756-1827), 2nd bt., a cultivated man who travelled in Italy after leaving university and who, with his wife, developed the picture collection at Langley Park. His younger brother George Beauchamp-Proctor (1759-1838) inherited the White Hall estate at Tottenham, but sold it to his brother shortly before his marriage. The motives for this sale are unclear, but Sir Thomas offloaded the estate a year later, selling it to a tanner who constructed a tan-yard in the grounds! Sir Thomas' wife bore him nine children, of whom eight survived to maturity. Of his four surviving sons, two went into the army, one the navy, and one the church.  Rather surprisingly it was the eldest son, Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor (1781-1861), 3rd bt., who joined the Navy, going to sea at the age of 13 and rising through the ranks until he retired as a Captain in 1809, although the Navy's tradition of promotion by seniority saw him rise to be an Admiral on the retired list. After retiring, he returned to Norfolk and took his place in local government, serving as High Sheriff in 1833-34.

The Admiral had three sons and six daughters. His eldest son, Sir Thomas William Brograve Beauchamp-Proctor (1815-74), 4th bt., was known as a young man as Thomas B. Proctor, and in 1852, for reasons which are obscure, he reversed the order of his surnames, becoming Sir Thomas Proctor-Beauchamp. Several other members of the family dropped the Proctor part of their surname, at least in daily usage, although as far as I can see none of them did so formally. The 4th baronet must have been keen on the military life, for after serving in the regular army for about eight years as a young man, he held a series of commissions in different militia regiments, culminating in a command as Lt-Col. of the Norfolk Rifle Volunteers. He had five sons and four daughters, all of whom survived until maturity except for the youngest son. Three of his sons succeeded to the baronetcy in turn: Sir Reginald William Proctor-Beauchamp (1853-1912), 5th bt., whose marriage collapsed after his wife had an affair with a former MP, and who had no sons; Sir Horace George Proctor-Beauchamp (1856-1915), 6th bt., a career soldier who was married but had no issue; and the Rev. Sir Montagu Harry Proctor-Beauchamp (1860-1939), 7th bt., a missionary in China, who was the ancestor of the current baronet. Langley Park passed with the baronetcy to Sir Reginald Proctor-Beauchamp, but on his death in 1912 it was left to his elder daughter, Sheila (1881-1953), the wife of Maj. Hermon Barker-Hahlo (1873-1972). She and her husband seem to have separated in about 1930 and Sheila resumed the surname Beauchamp by royal licence in 1934. Langley Park was requisitioned during the Second World War and afterwards was leased to a school. Sheila Beauchamp's only son, Jocelyn George Reginald Barker-Hahlo (1910-58), had taken the surname Beauchamp on coming of age in 1931. Although briefly engaged in 1938, he never married, and he sold the freehold of Langley Park to the incumbent school in 1957, shortly before his death. The family retained the important picture collection begun by George Proctor in the 1730s and augmented by the 2nd baronet and later owners, although one of the most important pictures was sold in the 1950s and more in 1974.

White Hall, Tottenham, Middlesex

The story of this property begins with  a large house belonging to the Barkham family on the east side of High Cross Green, which is thought to have been converted into an inn (the Ship Inn) after Sir Edward Barkham's death in 1634. It was apparently superseded by a house known as Crokes Farm on White Hart Lane, which occupied a plot on the west side of the High Road from White Hart Lane south to the later Church Road; Love Lane may have marked its rear boundary. The tiny sketch of it on the Earl of Dorset's survey of Tottenham in 1619 suggests it may have been constructed around a courtyard, and by 1664, when the house may have been enlarged or rebuilt, it was assessed on 21 hearths, indicating a building as large as many country houses. The house was rebuilt again in the mid 1750s by Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor, 1st bt., who renamed it White Hall. 

White Hall, Tottenham: the mid 18th century mansion, here attributed to John Sanderson, built for Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor in the 1750s.

White Hall was a seven bay, three storey house with the central three bays broken forward and carrying a pediment, and projecting three-bay, single-storey wings. No architect is recorded for the building, but it is much in the style of the London-based second generation Palladian, John Sanderson, who made alterations to Langley Park in 1757. In 1790 a new owner of the house built a tan-yard in the grounds, and even though this was removed by his successor, the character of the area was probably already changing from a landscape dominated by the suburban villas of the gentry to an area of more mixed development. In the 1830s, when the house was still screened by trees from the High Road and faced south across a lake, a new entrance was made to the property from the High Road, and by the 1860s the house and lake had been removed and the site was being developed for terraced housing.

Descent: John Croke (d. 1477); to son, John Croke... William Dalby; to son, Lionel Dalby, who sold c.1610 to Sir Edward Barkham (c.1551-1634), kt.; to younger son, Sir Robert Barkham (c.1598-1661), kt.; sold after his death to his brother, Sir Edward Barkham (c.1595-1667), 1st bt.; to younger son, Sir William Barkham (1639-94), 3rd bt; to daughters, who sold to Ephraim Beauchamp (d. 1728); to grandson, William Beauchamp (from 1744 Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor (1722-73), 1st bt.); to son, George Beauchamp-Proctor (1759-1838), who sold 1789 to his brother, Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor (1756-1827), 2nd bt.; sold 1790 to Mr. Abrahams, tanner; sold c.1810 to Mr. Andrews; sold to Henry Hunt; sold to William May Simmonds; sold 1827 to Charles Soames (fl. 1843); demolished by 1863.

Langley Park, Norfolk

Langley Hall is one of the most charming and richly decorated country houses in the county, and it is a great pity that its complex evolution is not more clearly understood. The estate belonged to the Berney family from the Dissolution of the Monasteries until 1739, but nothing seems to be known about the house they had here in the 16th and 17th centuries. The present building began as a two-storey red brick house built on a greenfield site for Robert Berney (d. 1738) in about 1730 or perhaps a little earlier; it had a five-bay entrance front and seven closely-spaced bays on the garden front. In 1736 the new house was said to be so bad that it ought to be pulled down, but when offered for sale in 1739 it was 'lately built in the newest manner'. The purchaser was George Proctor of Epsom (Surrey), who had recently been living in Venice. He probably added the attic storey and the pavilion wings (originally of seven by three bays), joined to the main block of the house by curved links, to the design of Matthew Brettingham, c.1742-44. 

Langley Park: detail of a painting by John Wootton dated 1749 showing the house and pavilion wings before the addition of the towers.
Image: Norwich Castle Museum.

Proctor died in 1744 and left the house to his nephew, William Beauchamp (1722-73), on condition that he took the additional name of Proctor, which he did the same year. John Wootton's painting of 1749 of the Beauchamp-Proctor family and their friends in the grounds of the house makes clear that at that date Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor had not begun to build the corner towers with pyramidal caps which are the most distinctive feature of the house today. 

Langley Park: view of the house by an anonymous artist, c.1770, showing the house after the addition of the towers
and the commencement of landscaping works. Image: Roger Last.

The corner towers have usually been attributed to Matthew Brettingham, but they are remarkably similar to the corner towers added to Kimberley Hall (Norfk) in 1754 by the amateur architect Thomas Prowse. Prowse and Proctor-Beauchamp were both MPs at this time, and would have known one another through Parliament. There is another link, for John Sanderson, the London-based second generation Palladian whom Prowse used as executant architect at both Kimberley and elsewhere, made drawings for Langley that include alternative designs for the form of the towers, one of which is essentially as built, and a letter of December 1757 shows Sanderson did actually carry out work at Langley. So it seems probable that either Prowse designed and Sanderson erected the towers; or that Sanderson, having erected the corner towers at Kimberley to Prowse's design, made similar alterations to Langley without Prowse's involvement. 

Langley Park: drawing by John Sanderson for suggested improvements to the entrance front.
The tower design on the right-hand side of the sheet is close to what was built. Image: Yale Center for British Art Public Domain image.

The four-column Greek Doric entrance porch was added in c.1829-30 and the reconstruction of the pavilion wings as four-by-four bay blocks may have been done at the same time. The latter change had been completed by 1830, when the wings in their current form are shown on a ground plan of the house. They cannot, therefore, be the unidentified work which Anthony Salvin carried out in 1849-50, and indeed his estimate of £520 would not have covered such a major remodelling. Further work was done by Edward Boardman (1833-1910) in about 1867, which included the re-roofing of the main block and minor alterations to the towers, and a conservatory was added to the rear of the east wing at much the same time. By the early 20th century the condition of the house was deteriorating and repairs, including the re-roofing of the east wing, were undertaken in the 1920s; the Victorian conservatory was largely demolished about 1930. The house was requisitioned for military use in the Second World War and let as a school afterwards. The school bought the freehold in 1957 and continues to occupy the building.

Langley Park: entrance front in 1995. Image: Nick Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

The result of this complex evolution is a house which is Palladian in overall feel, although the proportions and details feel earlier on closer inspection. The banded Doric pilasters carrying an entablature that is only complete over the pilaster capitals, the proportions of the main elevations, which have ground and first floors of equal height, and the attic storey above the entablature, all derive from the early 18th century idiom epitomized by Buckingham House, London. 

Langley Hall: garden front in 1927. Image: Country Life.

The stone doorcase on the north (garden) front, with engaged Ionic columns set against a rusticated background and carrying a broken pediment belongs to the same style and is presumably a survival from the original house of c.1730. The plain parapet and understated central pediments on the north and south fronts contribute to the Palladian feel and seem to have been added at the same time as the corner towers: Sanderson's surviving drawings show that he toyed with the idea of a much more baroque treatment with a swan-neck pediment against the parapet and life-sized baroque sculptures against the attic storey.

Langley Park: ground floor plan of the house dated 1830, showing that the wings had then already been rebuilt in their current four-bay form.

The internal plan is complex and a little awkward, no doubt largely because of the progressive expansion of the house, but one's impression is dominated by the exceptionally rich Rococo plasterwork. It is regrettable that there is so little dating evidence to suggest what was done when, although it seems probably that several different craftsmen contributed to it, perhaps over ten or fifteen years. 

Langley Park: detail of entrance hall ceiling. Image: Nick Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

The large entrance hall has a domed circular centre with four allegorical figures and four medallions with heads in profile.  The principal staircase to the right has rises in a single flight, but divides in two as it approaches the first-floor landing, which has plaster wall and ceiling decoration, again with large medallions bearing profile busts. The stair itself has three twisted balusters to each tread and carved tread-ends, a ramped and wreathed handrail and dado panelling. 

Langley Park: first floor landing and corridor in 1927. Image: Country Life.

Behind the entrance hall and occupying the centre of the north front is the modestly proportion saloon, which has two large high-relief stucco panels of outstanding quality, attributed since the early 19th century to the rather obscure Charles Stanley, a Dane born to English parents who was in England between 1727 and 1746. 

Langley Park: saloon, 1995. Image: Nick Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

Langley Park: panel of the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs over the saloon chimneypiece. Image: Nick Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

The panel over the chimneypiece represents the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, and the one opposite the Departure of Helen (after Guido Reni). There are smaller mythological reliefs above the doors to either side of these big panels, and two large putti lying on the sides of the pediment above the door into the hall. Between the windows are oval mirrors flanked by four standing female nudes. The saloon is flanked by the Breakfast Room and the Red Room. The former has two arches creating a rather awkward serving space which represents the base of one of the corner towers and a space next to it added to the house at the same time. The Red Room has further Rococo stuccowork. 

Langley Park: the breakfast room in 1927. Image: Country Life.

The ground floor of the east wing is largely occupied by the library, ballroom and billiard room, all of which are entered through a smaller ante room, reached from the main house through one of the curving linking passages. The Library, which has a Venetian window in the east end wall of the Library and canted bay to the north, has a ceiling with Rococo tendril trails composed around an oval relief of Diana and Actaeon, which may also be by Charles Stanley, although the style is rather different to the panels in the saloon. The Ballroom was redecorated in the early Victorian period (perhaps as early as c.1829-30) in a rich and rather French style.

Langley Park: stucco panel of Diana and Actaeon on the library ceiling. Image: Nick Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

Langley Park: the ballroom ceiling. Image: Nick Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

To the west of the Breakfast Room, and connecting with it, is the Dining Room. This stands outside the line of the corner towers and is clearly a later addition. However, the interior seems to be original Georgian work in a much more restrained style than any of the other rooms. It looks like a surviving fragment of the Matthew Brettingham interior of the 1740s, and Pevsner speculated that it originally stood in the west wing and was re-erected here when that wing was rebuilt as the kitchen and other domestic offices. The centre has a domed circle in the ceiling, with a big star in the shallow dome, which looks early 19th century. A screen of fluted Ionic columns defines the serving space at the inner end of the room.

Langley Park: ceiling of first-floor room with singerie decoration by Adrien de Clermont. Image: Nick Kingsley. Some rights reserved.

Upstairs, the room above the entrance hall has a delightful ceiling by Adrien de Clermont, in which his usual singerie decoration is varied by the addition of dogs and owls. It must have been painted before the artist returned to France in 1755. The house was noted in the 19th and early 20th century for its collection of pictures, although the most famous of these, Poussin's Nativity, was sold at Sothebys in 1956.

The Wootton view of the house shows it set in a formal landscape with big blocks of woodland defining geometrical shapes. In 1765, in another parallel with Kimberley Hall, Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor asked Capability Brown to design a new informal layout, and his plan remains in the house, though major elements of it, including the lake, were apparently never executed. The later bird's eye view reproduced above shows a more informal landscape, with a classical temple to the west of the house, evidence that the new drives, and woodland clearance and planting were carried out. Much of the parkland landscape was returned to agriculture during and after the Second World War. 

Langley Park: landscaping scheme by Capability Brown, 1765, which was only partially executed. Image: Langley School.

There are a number of subsidiary buildings in the grounds which are of note, including the nine-bay square stable block (now converted into teaching accommodation), probably designed by Matthew Brettingham for George Proctor in the early 1740s. South-west of the house is the 15th century village cross, which was presumably moved here (where it marks the junction of four parishes) when the village was cleared away. 

Langley Park: Chedgrave Road lodge, by Sir John Soane, 1790. Image: Evelyn Simak. Some rights reserved.

Langley Park: Thurton lodges by Sir John Soane, 1784.

There are also two sets of lodges on the Norwich and Chedgrave roads which are early works of Sir John Soane, designed in 1784 for Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor, 2nd bt. The Chedgrave lodges (not erected until 1790) take the form of a triumphal screen of gault brick with Portland stone dressings, with the lodge accommodation either side of the single tall archway. The oval paterae either side of the archway and the extraordinary chimneypots on the shoulders of the arch are made of Coade stone. The lodge blocks have two handsome stone greyhounds carved by James Nelson as supporters for oval panels of the family coat of arms. The Thurton Lodges on the Norwich road (acquired and restored by the Norfolk Historic Buildings Trust in 1985) are more conventional square single-storey blocks with pedimented gable-ends above a central recess flanked by unfluted Doric columns; perfectly formed little buildings with the calculated economy of design that was to be a hallmark of Soane's mature style. They are linked by a simple but equally elegant cast iron screen.

Descent: built for Robert Berney (d. 1738); sold 1739 to George Proctor (d. 1744); to nephew, Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor (1722-73), 1st bt.; to son, Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor (1756-1827), 2nd bt.; to son, Admiral Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor (1781-1861), 3rd bt.; to son, Sir Thomas William Brograve Beauchamp-Proctor (later Proctor-Beauchamp) (1815-74), 4th bt.; to son, Sir Reginald William Proctor-Beauchamp (1853-1912), 5th bt.; to daughter, Sheila Ginevra Hilda Mary Proctor-Beauchamp (1881-1953), wife of Maj. Hermon Barker-Hahlo (1873-1972), who resumed the name Beauchamp 1934; to son, Jocelyn George Reginald Barker-Hahlo (later Beauchamp) (1910-58); sold 1957 to Langley School.

Beauchamp (later Beauchamp-Proctor and Proctor-Beauchamp) of Langley Park, baronets

Beauchamp, Ephraim (1661-1728). Sixth son of Edward Beauchamp (1612-82) of Upton near Burford (Oxon), yeoman, and his wife Margery Haines, born 1661. A citizen and stone mason of London, he was probably apprenticed to his brother-in-law, Edward Strong of Burford, who became one of the men principally responsible for the rebuilding of the city of London after the Great Fire of 1666. He first appears in London in 1683 receiving a payment for Strong, and he was made free of the Masons Company in London, 1684. His works included building the east wing of the College of Arms, 1687, the church of St Dunstan-in-the-East, London, 1695, and part of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral (with Christopher Kempster), 1690-1707. His accumulating wealth was reflected in an increase in social status: he first styled himself as a 'gentleman' in 1708 and was an 'esquire' just a few years' later in 1712, and he evidently retired from business in about 1707. He was a Governor of Bethlem and Bridewell Royal Hospitals from c.1701 (the latter used chiefly as a prison by this date), a Trustee of the Tottenham Free Grammar School, a Governor of Christ's Hospital, and a Commissioner of Sewers for Tower Hamlets. He married 1st, 28 October 1686 at Godstone (Surrey), Mary (1666-98), daughter of Edward Warden of London; 2nd, 28 February 1698/9 at St Giles, Camberwell (Surrey), Mary Brooks (d. 1704); and 3rd, 19 May 1704 at Edmonton (Middx), Letitia (c.1668-1740), daughter of John Coppin of Pulloxhill (Beds), and had issue:

(1.1) Thomas Beauchamp (c.1687-1724) (q.v.);

(1.2) Edward Beauchamp (b. 1689), baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St.. London, 12 June 1689; probably died young;

(1.3) Ephraim Beauchamp (1691-92), baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London, 17 March 1690/1; died in infancy and was buried at the same church, 12 September 1692; 

(1.4) Ephraim Beauchamp (1692-1704), baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London, 8 September 1692; died young and was buried at Tottenham, 27 April 1704;

(1.5) Ann Beauchamp (b. 1693), baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London, 11 October 1693; probably died young;

(1.6) Thomas Beauchamp (b. 1695), baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London, 1 January 1685/6; probably died young;

(1.7) Elizabeth Beauchamp (b. & d. 1697), baptised 2 December 1697; died in infancy, 5 December 1697;

(2.1) Mary Beauchamp (b. 1701), baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London, 10 April 1701; died young and is said to have been buried at Tottenham;

(2.2) Elizabeth Beauchamp (b. 1702), baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London, 3 January 1702/3; probably died young;

(3.1) Letitia Beauchamp (1708-13), baptised at Tottenham, 30 October 1708; died young and was buried at Tottenham, 21 March 1712/3.

He purchased Crookes Farm (later White Hall), Tottenham in 1694. He lived latterly at Hertford.

He died 16 September 1728; his will was proved 26 October 1728. His first wife was buried at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London, 26 April 1698. His second wife was buried at St Mary Magdalene, Old Fish St., London or at Tottenham (Middx)*, 11 January 1703/4. His widow died 16 March 1739/40 and was buried at Tottenham, 27 March 1740; her will was proved in the PCC, 18 March 1739/40.

* Her burial is entered in the registers of both churches.

Beauchamp, Thomas (c.1687-1724). Son of Ephraim Beauchamp (c.1660-1728) and his first wife Mary Warden, born about 1687. He married, 3 February 1718/9 in the chapel of St James' Palace, Westminster (Middx), with a portion of £10,000, Anne (1693-1745), daughter of William Proctor (d. 1726) of Epsom (Surrey), citizen and fishmonger of London, and had issue:

(1) Letitia Beauchamp (b. 1720), baptised at Tottenham, 18 March 1719/20;

(2) Sir William Beauchamp (later Beauchamp-Proctor) (1722-73), 1st bt. (q.v.);

(3) Mary Beauchamp (1723-34), baptised at Tottenham, 29 May 1723; died young and was buried at Tottenham, 20 July 1734;

(4) Anne/Jane Beauchamp (d. 1740), buried at Tottenham, 24 September 1740.

He was killed by a fall from his horse at Epsom on 15 June and was buried at Tottenham (Middx), 23 June 1724 in the lifetime of his father; he died intestate. His widow was buried at Tottenham, 20 April 1745.

Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor, 1st bt.  

Beauchamp (later Beauchamp-Proctor), Sir William (1722-73), 1st bt. Only son of Thomas Beauchamp (d. 1724) and his wife Anne, daughter of William Proctor of Epsom (Surrey), baptised at All Hallows, Tottenham (Middx), 11 May 1722. Educated at Magdalen College, Oxford (matriculated 1738; created MA 1742). Colonel of the East Middlesex Militia, 1759-70. He was MP for Middlesex, 1747-68, and while nominally a Whig retained considerable independence, being regarded as a supporter by both sides at different times. He was defeated at the 1768 election by the turbulent radical, John Wilkes, in an election which is said to have cost him £10,000*, and did not stand for Parliament again. He was created a baronet, 20 February 1744/5, made a Knight of the Bath, 23 March 1761, and took the name Beauchamp-Proctor by Act of Parliament, 1745, under the terms of the will of his uncle George Proctor of Langley Park (Norfk). He married 1st, 29 January 1744/5 at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, his cousin, Jane (1724-61), daughter of Christopher Tower of Huntsmoor Park (Bucks) and 2nd, 13 May 1762 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), Letitia (1737-98), eldest daughter and coheir of Henry Johnson of Great Berkhamsted (Herts), and had issue:

(1.1) Christopher Beauchamp-Proctor (b. 1746), born 11 August and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 26 August 1746; died young;

(1.2) Jane Beauchamp-Proctor (1747-52), born 28 September and was baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 26 October 1747; died young and was buried at the same church, 10 May 1752;

(1.3) Anne Beauchamp-Proctor (1749-1813), born 8 August and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 5 September 1749; married, 29 January 1778 at St Marylebone (Middx), Sir Edmund Bacon (1749-1820), 8th & 9th bt., and had issue three sons and two daughters; died 26 August 1813 and was buried at Raveningham (Norfk), 3 September 1813;

(1.4) Mary Beauchamp-Proctor (b. 1750), born 17 January and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 22 February 1750; died young;

(1.5) Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor (1756-1827), 2nd bt. (q.v.);

(1.6) Frances Beauchamp-Proctor (1757-1836), baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 19 December 1757; married, 25 January 1778 at St Marylebone (Middx), John Custance (1749-1822) of Weston House (Norfk), and had issue seven sons and four daughters; died 10 April and was buried at Weston Longville (Norfk), 21 April 1836;

(1.7) George Beauchamp-Proctor (1759-1838), born 27 January and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 24 February 1759; inherited White Hall, Tottenham, from his father in 1773 but sold it to his elder brother in 1789; married, 20 October 1789 at Hurst (Berks), Charlotte (1758-1832), eldest daughter of Robert Palmer of Holme Park, Sonning (Berks); buried at Langley, 18 May 1838; will proved in the PCC, 23 June 1838;

(1.8) Mary Beauchamp-Proctor (1760-76), born 24 March and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 21 April 1760; died in London, 17 June, and was buried at Tottenham (Middx), 24 June 1776;

(2.1) Letitia Beauchamp-Proctor (1763-80), baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 20 March 1763; died unmarried and was buried at the same church, 25 March 1780;

(2.2) Henrietta Beauchamp-Proctor (b. & d. 1764), baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 19 December 1764; died in infancy and was buried at the same church, 21 December 1764;

(2.3) William Henry Beauchamp-Proctor (1769-1806), of Forthampton (Glos), born 9 April and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 8 May 1769; married, 21 June 1790 at Cumnor (Berks), Frances Mary (c.1771-1844), daughter and co-heir of Rev. William Davie, and had issue six sons and three daughters; died unmarried, 9 May 1806; 

(2.4) Christopher Beauchamp(-Proctor) (1771-1844), born 13 September and baptised at Langley, 6 October 1771; educated at Queens' College, Cambridge (matriculated 1790; BCL 1798); an officer in the Cambridgeshire Militia (Capt., 1807); did not use the second part of his surname; died unmarried at Ely, 21 February 1844;

(2.5) Sidney Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor (b. 1774), born posthumously and baptised at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, 18 February 1774; probably died in infancy and in any case before 1798.

He inherited White Hall, Tottenham from his grandfather in 1728, came of age in 1743, and rebuilt the house in the 1750s. He inherited Langley Hall from his uncle George Proctor in about 1744, and altered that house, also in the 1750s.

He died 13 September 1773 and was buried at Tottenham (Middx); he is commemorated by a monument at Langley; his will was proved in the PCC, 7 December 1773. His first wife died 10 May 1761. His widow died 12 January 1798; her will was proved in the PCC, 15 March 1798.

* King George III took a personal interest in his contest with Wilkes (the King's bête noire), and after it was over, visited Sir William at his house in Bruton Street. He is said to have offered to cover Sir William's election expenses and, when this was declined, offered him a peerage which was accepted. The title (Baron Langley) is said to have been chosen, but Sir William died before the patent could pass the Great Seal, and his son and successor begged permission to decline the honour. 

Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor, 2nd bt. 

Beauchamp-Proctor, Sir Thomas (1756-1827), 2nd bt. Eldest son of Sir William Beauchamp (later Beauchamp-Proctor) (1722-73), 1st bt., and his first wife Jane, daughter of Christopher Tower of Huntsmoor Park (Bucks), born 29 September 1756. Educated at Harrow and Christ's College, Cambridge (matriculated 1773; created MA 1777) and then travelled in Europe: he is recorded in Venice in 1777. High Sheriff of Norfolk, 1780-81. He married, 5 March 1778 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), Mary (1759-1847), second daughter of Robert Palmer of Sonning (Berks), chief agent to the Bedford Estate in London, and had issue:

(1) Mary Beauchamp-Proctor (1779-1854), born 21 October and baptised at St James, Piccadilly, Westminster (Middx), 19 November 1779; married, 12 May 1800 at Langley, Rev. Henry Charles Hobart (1773-1844), rector of Bere Ferrers (Devon), 1798-1823, vicar of Kempley (Glos), 1821-38 and Canon of Hereford Cathedral, 1819-44, son of Hon. Henry Hobart (1738-99), and had issue two sons; buried at Langley, 11 May 1854;

(2) Admiral Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor (1781-1861), 3rd bt. (q.v.);

(3) Harriet Beauchamp-Proctor (1782-1868), born 22 October and baptised at Langley, 17 November 1782; married, 25 June 1803 at St Marylebone (Middx), Christopher Thomas Tower (1775-1867) of Weald Hall (Essex) and had issue four sons and four daughters; died 19 February 1868; administration of goods granted 7 April 1868 (effects under £2,000);

(4) Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor (1784-89), baptised at Langley, 8 February 1784; died young and was buried at Langley, 21 June 1789;

(5) George Edward Beauchamp-Proctor (1785-1868), born 23 July and baptised at Langley, 14 August 1785; JP for Berkshire; he lived at The Priory, Beech Hill (Berks) and later at Thetford (Norfk); married 1st, 2 August 1808 at Stratfield Saye, Louisa Ellen (1790-1848), only daughter of Robert William Halhed (d. 1836) of The Priory, Beech Hill, and had issue two sons and three daughters; married 2nd, 25 April 1855 at St John, Paddington (Middx), Elizabeth (1825-1918), daughter of Frederick Chapman esq.; died 21 December and was buried at Langley, 29 December 1868; will proved 6 March 1869 (estate under £30,000);

(6) Capt. Robert Beauchamp-Proctor (1787-1813), born 1 April and baptised at Langley, 4 May 1787; an officer in the Madras Horse Artillery (Cadet, 1801; Lt., 1804; Capt. 1810); died unmarried at Bangalore (India), 23 May 1813;

(7) Rev. Thomas William Henry Beauchamp(-Proctor) (1790-1863), baptised at Langley, 21 June 1790; educated at Christ's College, Cambridge (matriculated 1809; BA 1813; MA 1820); ordained deacon, 1813 and priest, 1814; rector of Buckenham with Hassingham (Norfk), 1814-63 and of Chedgrave with Langley, 1817-38; and Carlton St. Peter with Ashby (Norfk), 1838-63; dropped the additional name Proctor in later life; died unmarried, 9 May and was buried at Buckenham, 14 May 1863; will proved 9 July 1863 (effects under £7,000);

(8) Amelia Beauchamp-Proctor (1791-1874), born 28 August and baptised at Langley, 5 September 1791; married, 23 December 1815 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), the Hon. & Rev. Armine Wodehouse (1776-1853), son of John Wodehouse, 1st Baron Wodehouse of Kimberley Hall (Norfk), but had no issue; lived latterly in Bath (Som.); died 24 November and was buried at Bathwick (Som.), 1 December 1874;

(9) Col. Richard Beauchamp(-Proctor) (1793-1850), born 30 January 1793 and baptised at Langley, 7 March 1793; an officer in the army (Cornet, 1811; Lt. 1812; Capt. 1820; Maj., 1825; Lt-Col. 1828; Col., 1841; retired on half-pay, 1832); like his elder brother, in 1811 he dropped the additional name Proctor; married, 4 October 1828 at Horsham (Sussex), Sophia Dorothea (c.1796-1878), youngest daughter of Benjamin Ball esq. of Dublin, and had issue two sons and one daughter; committed suicide in Dublin, 11 April 1850; will proved in the PCC, 7 May 1851.

He inherited Langley Hall from his father in 1773, and came of age in 1777. He purchased White Hall, Tottenham, from his younger brother in 1789 but sold it in 1790.

He died 29 March 1827 and was buried at Langley, where he is commemorated by a monument; his will was proved in the PCC, 31 July 1827. His widow died 25 December 1847; her will was proved in the PCC, 28 January 1848.

Beauchamp-Proctor, Admiral Sir William (1781-1861), 3rd bt. Eldest son of Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor (1756-1827), 2nd bt., and his wife Mary, second daughter of Robert Palmer of Sonning (Berks), born 11/14 October 1781. Entered the Royal Navy in 1794 (Lt., 1800; Cdr., 1802; Capt., 1806; retired 1809; Rear-Adm., 1846; Vice-Adm., 1850; Adm., 1857). JP and DL (from 1820) for Norfolk; High Sheriff of Norfolk, 1833-34. He married, 19 May 1812 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), Anne (1792-1859), daughter of Thomas Gregory of Springfield (Essex), and had issue:

(1) Mary Anne Beauchamp-Proctor (1813-83), baptised at Springfield (Essex), 17 April 1813; married, 18 October 1843 at Langley, John Jocelyn Ffoulkes (1813-98), of Eriviatt (Denbighs.), son of Lt-Col. John Powell Ffoulkes, and had issue seven daughters; died in Switzerland, 27 April 1883;

(2) Harriet Elizabeth Beauchamp-Proctor (1814-93), born 23 April and baptised at Brome, 24 April 1814; married, 3 November 1840 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx), Prideaux Selby (1810-72), barrister-at-law, of Swansfield and Paston, Kirk Newton (Northbld), son of Prideaux Selby, and had issue four sons and five daughters; admitted to Wyke House Private Lunatic Asylum, Isleworth (Middx), 1890; died 23 April and was buried at Brompton Cemetery (Middx), 26 April 1893;

(3) Sir Thomas William Brograve Beauchamp-Proctor (later Proctor-Beauchamp) (1815-74), 4th bt. (q.v.);

(4) Julia Beauchamp-Proctor (1816-28), baptised at Brome, 25 September 1816; died young and was buried at Langley, 9 October 1828;

(5) Rev. William Henry Beauchamp-Proctor (later Beauchamp) (1818-53), born 16 March and baptised at Brome (Norfk), 20 March 1818; educated at Eton and Christ's College, Cambridge (matriculated 1837; BA 1841; MA 1844); ordained priest, 1842; rector of Chedgrave and perpetual curate of Langley (Norfk), 1843-53; married, 31 December 1845 at St Martin, Stamford Baron (Lincs), Augusta (1815-87), daughter of Dr. Thomas Graham Arnold MD of Stamford (Lincs) and had issue three sons (of whom the second was created a baronet as Sir Edward Beauchamp, 1st bt. of Grosvenor Place) and two daughters; accidentally killed by a fall from his carriage, 19 March 1853; will proved in the PCC, 22 July 1853;

(6) Robert Beauchamp-Proctor (1819-89), born 16 October and baptised at Brome, 17 October 1819; said to have been briefly an officer in the Royal Navy (Lt.); emigrated to New Zealand about 1839 and is credited with introducing Merino sheep to that country; failing to prosper he twice returned to England and was shipwrecked on both voyages; he then established a cattle ranch at Whittlesea, Victoria (Australia) before moving to Tasmania in the 1850s, where he established a fruit farm at Launceston in about 1861; he was a noted amateur artist, known for his depictions of rural scenes in the Antipodes; married, 14 June 1854 at St Peter, Wellington (NZ), Elizabeth Beatrice (1837-1918), daughter of Henry Symons MD and had issue eight sons and two daughters; died at Rosevears, Tasmania (Australia), 12 October and was buried at Charles St. Cemetery, Launceston, 15 October 1889;

(7) Emma Beauchamp-Proctor (1821-27), baptised at Brome (Norfk), 2 September 1821; died young and was buried in Paris (France), 8 February 1827;

(8) Caroline Beauchamp-Proctor (1824-1911), born 2 January and baptised at Sprowston (Norfk), 4 January 1824; married, 18 March 1852 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, Capt. Henry Spencer Waddington (1816-95), eldest son of Henry Spencer Waddington MP of Cavenham (Suffk), and had issue five sons and seven daughters; died 25 June 1911 and was buried at Cavenham; will proved 9 August 1911 (estate £5,703);

(9) Jane Frances Beauchamp-Proctor (1825-1910), born 24 April and baptised at Sprowston (Norfk), 26 April 1825; married, 31 May 1854 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster, Rev. Henry Alfred Barrett (1813-95), rector of Chedgrave (Norfk) 1853-95, and had issue four sons and one daughter; died 31 January 1910 and was buried at Chedgrave; will proved 24 March 1910 (estate £16,212).

He inherited Langley Hall from his father in 1827.

He died 14 March and was buried at Langley, 22 March 1861; his will was proved 1 October 1861 (effects under £45,000). His wife died 6 February and was buried at Langley, 12 February 1859.

Beauchamp-Proctor (later Proctor-Beauchamp), Sir Thomas William Brograve (1815-74), 4th bt. Eldest son of Admiral Sir William Beauchamp-Proctor (1781-1861), 3rd bt., and his wife Anne, daughter of Thomas Gregory of Springfield (Essex), born 2 July and baptised at Langley, 3 July 1815. An officer in the Royal Horse Guards (Cornet, 1835; Lt., 1838; retired c.1843), Norfolk Yeomanry Cavalry (Capt., 1844), East Suffolk Militia (Maj., 1854) and Norfolk Rifle Volunteers (Lt., 1859; Capt., 1860; Lt-Col., 1861; retired 1872). JP and DL for Norfolk; High Sheriff of Norfolk, 1869-70. As a young man he was generally known as Thomas B. Proctor, and he reversed the order of his surnames by royal licence, 9 July 1852. He married, 15 June 1852 at All Souls, Langham Place, Marylebone (Middx), the Hon. Caroline Esther (1826-98), youngest daughter of Granville George Waldegrave, 2nd Baron Radstock, and had issue:

(1) Sir Reginald William Proctor-Beauchamp (1853-1912), 5th bt. (q.v.);

(2) Ida Caroline Proctor-Beauchamp (1854-1951), born 11 May and baptised at All Souls, Langham Place, 7 August 1854; married, 6 October 1891 at St Paul, Onslow Sq., South Kensington (Middx), as his second wife, Col. Robert Henry Curzon Holden (later Drury-Lowe) (1831-1907), third son of William Drury Holden (later Lowe) of Denby and Locko Park (Derbys); died aged 97 on 12 December 1951; will proved 16 February 1952 (estate £7,209);

(3) Granville Pelham Proctor-Beauchamp (1855-89), born 20 August and baptised at Holy Trinity, Marylebone (Middx), 5 November 1855; acted as land agent to his elder brother until he emigrated to California in the 1880s; died unmarried at Santa Monica, California (USA), 9 December 1889; will proved 29 April 1890 (effects £321);

(4) Sir Horace George Proctor-Beauchamp (1856-1915), 6th bt., born 3 November and baptised at St Marylebone (Middx), 31 December 1856; an officer in the 5th battalion, Norfolk Regiment (Sub-Lt., 1876; Lt., 1878; Capt., 1884; Maj., 1893; Lt-Col. and Br. Col., 1899) who served in the Sudan Campaign (mentioned in despatches), the Boer War (CB, 1902; mentioned in despatches) and the First World War; succeeded his elder brother as 6th baronet, 10 November 1912; married, 15 November 1892 at Burton (Hants) (div. 1915 on the grounds of her adultery with Capt. Harry Francis Darell (1872-1934), son of Edward Darell of Fretherne (Glos), whom she subsequently married), Florence (1873-1931), daughter of H.M. Leavitt of New York (USA), but had no issue; killed in action at the Battle of Suvla Bay, 12 August 1915, the day after his divorce was made absolute in London; will proved 18 September 1915 (estate £7,904);

(5) twin, Hilda Proctor-Beauchamp (1858-1921), born 15 November 1858 and baptised at St Marylebone, 14 January 1859; married, 10 December 1884 at Holy Trinity, Brompton (Middx), Sir (John Edward) Kynaston Studd (1858-1944), 1st bt., a well-known amateur cricketer who became Lord Mayor of London in 1928-29 (and who m2, 18 June 1924, Princess Alexandra (1879-1974), daughter of Prince Paul Hermann von Lieven (1821-81)), and had issue four sons and one daughter; died 22 April 1921; will proved 18 October 1921 (estate £3,307);

(6) twin, Constance Proctor-Beauchamp (1858-1941), born 15 November 1858 and baptised at St Marylebone, 14 January 1859; married 1st, 30 July 1889 at Holy Trinity, Brompton (Middx), as his second wife, William Douglas Robinson-Douglas (c.1851-1921) of Orchardton House, Castle Douglas (Kirkcudbrights.), son of Rev. George Robinson-Douglas, and 2nd, 13 May 1926 at Auchencairn (Kirkcudbrights.), William Jardine Herries Maxwell OBE (1852-1933) of Munches, son of Wellwood Herries Maxwell, but had no issue; died 4 June 1941;

(7) Rev. Sir Montagu Harry Proctor-Beauchamp (1860-1939), 7th bt., born 19 April and baptised at Holy Trinity, St. Marylebone, 1860; educated at Repton and Trinity College, Cambridge (MA); missionary in Western China, 1885-1910; vicar of Monkton Combe, 1914-18; Principal Chaplain to Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 1916 and Chaplain to North Russian Expeditionary Force, 1919; Hon. Chaplain to the Forces, 1921; deputation secretary for China Inland Mission, 1919-39; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Royal Empire Society; succeeded his elder brother as 7th bt., 12 August 1915; an enthusiastic cyclist; he lived latterly (when in England) at Ebley Court, Stroud (Glos); married, 20 April 1892, Florence (1869-1955), daughter of Robert Barclay of Reigate (Surrey) and had issue four sons (from whom descend the subsequent and current baronets) and one daughter; died at Paoning, Szechuan (China), 26 October 1939; will proved 20 June 1940 (estate £11,792);

(8) Maud Proctor-Beauchamp (1864-1956), born 19 January and baptised at Langley, 1 May 1864; married, 7 May 1889 at St Mary Abbotts, Kensington (Middx), Rev. William Thomas Baring Hayter (1858-1935), Dean of Gibraltar, 1913-20 and Master of the Charterhouse and Chaplain to the Order of St. John, 1927-35, third son of Harrison Hayter (1825-98), President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and had issue three daughters; died 18 February 1956; will proved 11 June 1956 (estate £3,792);

(9) Algernon Proctor-Beauchamp (1867-79), born 2 April 1867; died young, 6 March 1879.

He inherited Langley Hall from his father in 1861.

He died 7 October 1874; his will was proved 5 January 1875 (effects under £100,000). His widow died at Le Havre (France), 3 July 1898; her will was proved 26 October 1898 (effects £5,309).

Proctor-Beauchamp, Sir Reginald William (1853-1912), 5th bt. Eldest son of Sir Thomas William Brograve Beauchamp-Proctor (later Proctor-Beauchamp) and his wife the Hon. Caroline Esther, youngest daughter of Granville George Waldegrave, 2nd Baron Radstock, born 23 April and baptised at Langley, 31 July 1853. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1871). He succeeded his father as 5th baronet, 7 October 1874. An officer in the East Norfolk Artillery (Sub-Lt., 1875; Lt., 1875; Capt., after 1881; Maj., 1886; retired 1898); JP and DL for Norfolk. He travelled in China and Japan, 1879, and Burma and India, 1890. He married, 7 June 1880 at St James, Piccadilly (div. 1901 on the grounds of her adultery with Hugh Watt MP), Lady Violet Charlotte Julia Maria (1858-1925), only child of Lt-Col. John Strange Jocelyn, 5th Earl of Roden, and had issue:

(1) Sheila Ginevre Hilda Mary Proctor-Beauchamp (1881-1953) (q.v.);

(2) Nadine Sophia Charlotte Proctor-Beauchamp (1886-1949), born 10 February and baptised at Langley, 21 March 1886; regarded as a great beauty; married 1st, 23 April 1910 at St George, Hanover Sq., Westminster (Middx) (div. 1914), Edward Graves Brinkley (1885-1928), second son of John Lloyd Brinkley of Fortland (Co. Sligo); married 2nd, 15 September 1915 at the Chapel Royal, Savoy, London (div. 1921 on grounds of her adultery with her next husband), Sir George Bettesworth Pigott KBE (1867-1952), a judge, son of Fraser Pigott of Fitzhall, Midhurst (Sussex); married 3rd, 10 September 1923 (div. 1927), Maj. Nigel Desmond Stewart (1882-1962), son of Capt. Neil P. Stewart of Plas Lodwin, Bangor (Caernarvons.); married 4th, 11 May 1928, Capt. Edward Ralph Holme Woodcock (1877-1966), eldest son of Edward Holme-Woodcock of Wigan (Lancs), but had no issue; died at her home at St Jean, Cap Ferrat (France), 20 September 1949; her will was proved 7 March 1950 (estate in England, £6,086).

He inherited Langley Hall from his father in 1874. At his death it passed to his elder daughter.

He died 10 November 1912, when his baronetcy passed to his elder surviving brother; his will was proved 16 June 1913 (estate £221,882). His ex-wife married 2nd, 18 September 1903 at Brighton, Hugh Watt (1848-1921), MP for Glasgow Camlachie, 1885-92, son of John Watt of Maryfield, and died 22 October 1925; her will was proved 19 November 1925 (estate £19,418).

Proctor-Beauchamp, Sheila Ginevre Hilda Mary (1881-1953). Elder daughter of Sir Reginald William Proctor-Beauchamp (1853-1912), 5th bt. and his wife Lady Violet Charlotte Julia Maria, only child of John Strange Jocelyn, 5th Earl of Roden, born 4 April and baptised at Langley, 8 May 1881. She took the name Beauchamp by royal licence in 1934. She married, 22 June 1909 at Langley, Maj. Hermon Barker-Hahlo (1873-1972), barrister-at-law and later planter, of Foxlease Park, Lyndhurst (Hants) and later of Muirton, Manchioneal (Jamaica), only son of George Hahlo of Manchester, and had issue:

(1) Jocelyn George Reginald Barker-Hahlo (later Beauchamp) (1910-58) (q.v.);

(2) Sophie Patricia Fanny Barker-Hahlo (1911-50), born 12 January 1911; married, 16 March 1935, Paymaster Commander Hume Andrew Gibbons RN (1893-1940*), but had no issue; died 13 February 1950; will proved 31 March 1950 (estate £506).

She inherited Langley Hall from her father in 1912. It was requisitioned by the Government for military use during the Second World War and afterwards let for use as a school.

She died 20 January 1953; her will was proved 8 July 1953 and 29 September 1954 (estate £229,229). Her husband died in St Peter Port (Guernsey), 3 July 1972; his will was proved 5 June 1973 (estate in England & Wales, £31,851).

* He was killed in the sinking of HMS Glorious.

Barker-Hahlo (later Beauchamp), Jocelyn George Reginald (1910-58). Only child of Hermon Barker-Hahlo of Foxlease Park, Lyndhurst (Hants) and his wife Sheila Ginevre Hilda Mary, elder daughter of Sir Reginald William Proctor-Beauchamp, 5th bt., of Langley Park (Norfk), born and baptised at Langley, 15 February 1910. Educated at Eton. He took the name Beauchamp in lieu of Barker-Hahlo on coming of age in 1931. He qualified as a pilot in 1936 and served as an officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in the Second World War (2nd Lt., 1939; Lt., 1940; Lt-Cdr.). He was engaged to be married in July 1938 to Ann Haswell Coats, but the engagement was broken off two months later, and he died unmarried and without issue.

He inherited Langley Park from his mother in 1953, and sold the freehold to the tenant school in 1957. He lived latterly at Bergh Apton House (Norfk).

He died 13 March 1958; his will was proved 21 August 1958 and 9 July 1959 (estate £38,925).

Principal sources

Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 2003, pp. 3225-28; O. Brackett, 'Langley Park, Norfolk', Country Life, 2 July 1927; Sir N. Pevsner & B. Wilson, The buildings of England: Norfolk 2 - West and South, 2nd edn, 1999, pp. 510-14; M. Mobus, 'The Burford Masons', Open Univ. PhD thesis, 2012; M. Mobus, 'The Burford School of Masons', Oxoniensia, 2013, pp. 99-114.

Location of archives

Beauchamp, Beauchamp-Proctor and Proctor-Beauchamp family of Langley: deeds and papers, 13th-19th cents. [Norfolk Record Office, BEA, MS21593, MC1708, MC1322].

Coat of arms

Quarterly, 1st and 4th, argent, a chevron sable between three martlets gules; 2nd and 3rd, gules, a fess between six billets, three and three, barwise or, a canton ermine.

Can you help?

• I would be very interested to hear from anyone who can throw further light on the architects and craftspeople involved at White Hall or Langley Hall in the 18th century, or on the dating of the building sequence for Langley Hall.
• Does anyone know why the 4th baronet reversed the order of his surnames?
• Can anyone provide photographs or portraits of the people whose names appear in bold above, for whom no image is currently shown?
• If anyone can offer further information or corrections to any part of this article I should be most grateful. I am always particularly pleased to hear from current owners or the descendants of families associated with a property who can supply information from their own research or personal knowledge for inclusion.

Revision and acknowledgements

This post was first published 3 March 2022 and updated 4 March 2022.