Beesthorpe Hall belonged to the Bristowe family for nearly 400 years, the earliest association of the Bristowes with Beesthorpe being in 1547 when John Bristowe is known to have possessed lands there. The original building (certain Elizabethan characteristics are still in evidence) probably dates from the late 16th Century. In 1764 Samuel Bristowe (1736~1818) of the Derbyshire branch of the family bought Beesthorpe from his kinsman William Bristowe (1695~1770) who had impoverished the estate. Samuel, already in possession of the Twyford estate, had the means to immediately set about making improvements at Beesthorpe, both to the house and to the estate as a whole.

Samuel also laid out the woodland behind and the  parkland in front of the house.  A small ornamental lake  was made and also the ha-ha. In his book  'Nottinghamshire' (1938) Arthur Mee states that the  Beesthorpe parkland was the work of the famous  'Capability' Brown but apparently the gazetteer of  Brown's works does not make any mention of  Beesthorpe. Even if Brown was not personally  responsible, Samuel Bristowe certainly emulated that  natural style. Thus the beginning of the 19th Century  saw the Beesthorpe estate enjoying a new found  prosperity. The Schedule of estates for land tax dated  4/3/1799 shows Samuel as owning 933 acres in Caunton,  Norwell, Beesthorpe and Kersall. The size of the estate  remained at around 1000 acres until 1888 when the  owner, Samuel Boteler Bristowe (1822~97), was forced  to sell part of it, being in urgent need of capital. With the  agricultural depression of the latter part of the 19th  Century, the economic distinction was becoming yearly  more marked between landowners who were purely  agricultural and landowners who were guaranteed a  share in the wealth generated by industry and  commerce. Accordingly it came about that Samuel  Boteler, although a County Court Judge and a man  prominent in local affairs, including being M.P. for  Newark from 1870~80, felt it necessary to sell 392 acres,  this land being bought by Col. Burnell of Winkburn Hall.  As a result of this sale the Beesthorpe estate was left  with about 680 acres. 

Thirty nine years after Samuel Boteler's death the  estate was sold out of the Bristowe family. His sons died  without issue and the youngest of these, Frederick  Edward Bristowe (1866~1930), who had succeeded to  the property on the death of his brother Charles John  Bristowe (1862~1911) appointed a young second cousin  as heir. The latter was Paul Noel Humphrey Garnett,  born 1898, who changed his name to Bristowe in order  to inherit. Within 5 years, in 1935, Paul had sold the  estate to a consortium of European Jewish businessmen  anxious to get their money out of Nazi Germany and  invest it in English land - an unlikely and rather sad way  for the almost 400 year period of Bristowe ownership to  come to an end.   Picture above: Beesthorpe Hall 1947. 

Then, shortly after the end of the war, the estate was  put on the market and sold by auction in 12 individual  lots, chief of which were of course Beesthorpe Hall itself  (with some 39 acres of land including the 274 acres of  parkland) and the four farms. Thus the estate, now  comprising 653 acres, was finally broken up in 1947.As a  personal footnote to this story, I find it sad that there is  now no trace of the parkland, the view to the front of the  Hall across neighbouring farmland being thoroughly  uninteresting. It would have been on one of the oak  trees in the park that my great-grandfather John  Bristowe's (1811~88) name was carved; as related to me  by my mother. 

Picture: Beesthorpe Hall 1995.  John B. Chanter 13 August 2000 Used with permission. View original website. © The images are copyright awpet.com and are not to be used or copied without permission.

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