The History of Beaulieu
Beaulieu began as a monastic estate. The land was a gift from King John to the Cistercian monks. The Abbey was founded in 1204, although construction of the Abbey Church was not completed by the monks until 1246. The monks farmed about 10,000 acres of land and became rich from selling the wool from their flocks of sheep. They were helped in their work by lay brothers, men who lived in the Abbey but did not take the full monastic vows.
In the 1530s, Henry VIII set out to break the power of the Abbeys and in 1538, Beaulieu Abbey was dissolved. At the Dissolution, the Abbey and its lands were sold to Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton and an ancestor of the present Lord Montagu. The estate has remained in family ownership to the present day.
The Abbey Church and many of the other buildings were demolished by Thomas Wriothesley. Henry VIII used the stone and lead from the buildings in the construction of coastal defence castles at Hurst, Calshot and Cowes.
For much of its time in family ownership, the Beaulieu Estate has been a quiet rural retreat, one of several estates in the ownership of the family. In the early 18th Century, John, 2nd Duke of Montagu took a great interest in the Beaulieu Estate, where he planned to construct a large port at Buckler's Hard. Although this plan failed, Buckler's Hard village became a major rural shipbuilding centre in the second half of the 18th Century.
The second half of the 19th century was a period of great change for the Estate. In 1866, the 5th Duke of Buccleuch gave Beaulieu as a wedding present to his third son, Lord Henry Scott, later created 1st Baron Montagu of Beaulieu by Queen Victoria. From that time, Beaulieu has been the main family home of the Montagu family. Between 1870 and 1879, the Great Gatehouse of the Abbey was extended to form the new family home. The 1st Baron Montagu was devoted to Beaulieu, and spent much of his life in a struggle to make the Estate financially stable.
John, 2nd Baron Montagu, inherited the Estate on his father's death in 1905. Unlike his father, John had a keen interest in national and international affairs, and spent much of his time away from Beaulieu. He was a motoring pioneer and established "Car Illustrated" magazine in 1902. The end of the Great War marked changes in John's lifestyle. After the death of his first wife, he married again, and spent the last decade of his life almost entirely at Beaulieu. Although the two marriages produced five daughters, a male heir to the Estate was not born until 1926.
When the 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu died in 1929, his son was too young to inherit the Estate, which was managed by trustees until Edward, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu succeeded in 1951, on achieving his 25th birthday.