Beaulieu, Hampshire

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Beaulieu

Statistics

Population:

829

Ordnance Survey

Administration

Other

Services

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Post office and telephone

Post town:

BROCKENHURST

Postal district:

SO42

Dialling code:

01590

Politics

Beaulieu Palace House

Beaulieu (pronounced BYOO-lee) is a small village located on the south eastern edge of the New Forest national park in Hampshire, England.

Palace House (not to be confused with the Palace of Beaulieu in Essex), which overlooks the village from across Beaulieu River, began in 1204 as the gatehouse to Beaulieu Abbey, and has been the ancestral home of the a branch of the Montagu family since 1538, when it was bought from the crown following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. The house was extended in the 16th century, and again in the 19th century, and is today a fine example of a gothic country house. Although still home to the current Lord and Lady Montagu, parts of the house and gardens are open daily to the public. It is a member of the Treasure Houses of England consortium.

Sunbeam 1000HP

The village is also home to the British National Motor Museum. The museum, opened as the Montagu Motor Museum in 1952, becoming a charitable trust in 1972, contains an important collection of historic motor vehicles, including four world land speed record holders: Sir Malcolm Campbell's 1924 Blue-Bird and son Donald Campbell's 1964 Bluebird CN7, plus the 1927 Sunbeam 1000HP (the first motor car to reach 200 miles per hour) and the 1929 Irving-Napier Special 'Golden Arrow', both driven by Major Henry Segrave.

The picturesque hamlet of Bucklers Hard, with its Georgian cottages running down to the Beaulieu river is part of the 9000 acre (36 km²) Beaulieu Estate. It was the birthplace of many British naval vessels, including many of Admiral Nelson's fleet, using the timber of the New Forest. The industry declined in the 19th-century and today the hamlet is given over to tourism, with a small maritime museum, and a modern yachting marina. Bucklers Hard was where Sir Francis Chichester began and finished his single-handed voyage around the world in Gipsy Moth IV.

Beaulieu village has remained largely unspoilt by progress, and is a favourite tourist stop for visitors to the New Forest, and also for birders seeking local specialities like Dartford Warbler, Honey Buzzard and Hobby. The nearest railway station is Beaulieu Road, which is located several miles away on the London-Weymouth main line, and has a notoriously infrequent service (3 trains per day being typical), timed to be of use to locals working elsewhere, but consequently being unhelpful to those wanting to visit the area by train; visitors should use the stations at Brockenhurst or Ashurst instead. Brockenhurst is on the same line as Beaulieu Road Station but the next stop west. Brockenhurst is six miles away from Beaulieu, as opposed to Beaulieu Road Station, which is four miles away.

In the late 1950s Beaulieu was the surprising location for one of Britain's first experiments in pop festival culture, with the annual Beaulieu Jazz Festival, which quickly expanded to become a significant event in the burgeoning jazz and youth pop music scene of the period. Camping overnight, a rural invasion, eccentric dress, wild music and sometimes wilder behaviour--these now familar features of pop festival happened at Beaulieu each summer, culminating in the so-called 'Battle of Beaulieu' at the 1960 festival, when rival gangs of modern and traditional jazz fans indluged in a spot of what sociologists went on to call 'subcultural contestation' (see McKay 2004, 2005).

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

Lord Montagu of Beaulieu (2000) Wheels Within Wheels: An Unconventional Life. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
George McKay (2004) '"Unsafe things like youth and jazz": Beaulieu Jazz Festivals (1956-61) and the origins of pop festival culture in Britain'. In Andy Bennett, ed. Remembering Woodstock (Aldershot: Ashgate).
George McKay (2005) Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain, chapter one 'New Orleans jazz, protest (Aldermaston) and carnival (Beaulieu [Jazz Festival 1956-61])'. Durham NC: Duke University Press.