Overview
Beaumont College was between 1861 and 1967 a public school in Old Windsor in Berkshire. Founded and run by the Society of Jesus, it offered a Roman Catholic public school education in rural surroundings, while lying, like the neighbouring Eton College, within easy reach of London. It was therefore for many professional Catholics with school-age children a choice preferable to Stonyhurst College, the longer-standing Jesuit public school in North Lancashire. After the college's closure in 1967 the property was used in turn as a training centre, a conference centre and an hôtel; St John's Beaumont, the college's preparatory school for boys aged 3–13, continues, functioning in part as a feeder school for Stonyhurst.
History of the estate
The estate lies by the River Thames on the historic highway from Staines to Windsor, near Runnymede. It was originally known as Remenham, after Hugo de Remenham, who held the land at the end of the 14th century. The estate was then owned for a period by the Tyle family, and subsequently by John Morley, Francis Kibblewhite, William Christmas and Henry Frederick Thynne (clerk to the Privy Council under Charles II) in the 17th century. In 1714 Thomas Thynne, 2nd Viscount Weymouth, inherited the estate. In the mid-eighteenth century it was acquired by Sophia, Duchess of Kent. In 1751 the Duke of Roxburghe purchased the land for his eldest son, the Marquess of Bowmont and Cessford (then a boy at Eton College), and renamed it Beaumont in his honour. In 1786 Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India, acquired Beaumont Lodge at the cost of £12,000. He lived at Beaumont for three years. In 1789 the estate was sold to Henry Griffith, an Anglo-Indian, who had the Windsor architect Henry Emlyn rebuild the house in 1790 as a nine-bay mansion with a substantial portico.
History as a school
In 1805 the Beaumont property was bought for about £14,000 by Henry Jeffrey Flower, 4th Viscount Ashbrook, a friend of George IV. After his death in 1847, his widow continued to reside there until 1854, when she sold it to the Society of Jesus as a training college.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
