BEAUDESERT PARK MAGAZINE Autumn 2021
A LU M N I A History of The Highlands – now Beaudesert Park School Following the demolition of two cottages, in 1850 a large house was built just below where the School stands today, owned by Charles Baring, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. When Baring became Bishop of Durham in 1861, the estate was sold to John Griffith Frith, a banker and former India Merchant, who in turn demolished it since it had been built on fuller’s earth
CECIL FITCH’S 1910 ELECTION POSTCARD
AN 1873 WATERCOLOUR OF THE HIGHLANDS BY AXEL HERMAN HAIG
and replaced it on a higher limestone level with the half-timbered mansion we see today. Frith died in 1868, five years before the completion of the house. His widow and daughter, both named Caroline, occupied The Highlands (as it was then known) until their deaths – the mother in 1897 and the daughter in 1909. Caroline junior was the widow of Rev R E Blackwell, Rector of Amberley. Following her death the property passed to her nephew, Robert Eaton White. In 1911 it was tenanted by Cecil E Fitch, a London barrister, and his family. At this time the estate was recorded as including a vinery, peach house, melon house, carnation house, two orchid houses and two ferneries. Fitch stood unsuccessfully as Conservative candidate for Stroud in the General Election of December 1910, one of a series of hopefuls who attempted to unseat Stroud’s long-serving Liberal MP, Charles P Allen. In 1908, Dr Alfred Brown married Gabriella Stella Bell, who came from Henley-in-Arden in Warwickshire and by 1911 he was in practice in Minchinhampton. In 1918, a friend, Arthur Richardson – who had founded his Prep School in Beaudesert, the neighbouring village to Henley – learned from the Browns of the availability of The Highlands and moved his school to Gloucestershire, retaining the name Beaudesert Park. During Richardson’s time, school fees were just fifty guineas a term. In 1921, ten acres of land were bought from the National Trust for playing fields, with more being added later. Richardson was succeeded as Headmaster by his sons, Austin and Barton, and his son-in-law, Vincent Keyte, whose own son John retired as Head in 1995. At this time the School, by then run as an educational charity, lost its connection with the founding family. Howard Beard (Staff member 1987-2003)
A FÊTE AT THE HIGHLANDS CIRCA 1907
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