If Walls Could Talk: Beach House, South Gloucestershire
Delving into the history of houses inevitably reveals stories of families in wartime – stories of those who served and those who never came home - but few reveal a story quite like that of Beach House in South Gloucestershire.
Nestled in the idyllic hamlet of Beach, Beach House is a fine, grade-II-listed stone-built property that sits in a part of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty known locally as the Golden Valley.
The first evidence of Beach House came from an advert in the Bath Chronicle on Thursday, 12 June 1777:
By 1911, 39-year-old Horace Walker had owned Beach House for 3 years. He had come to Bristol as young man to be an agent for an American company and was later appointed to a role on the management staff of chocolate manufacturers H, J. Packer and Co. Ltd., from which he rose to be director (and later, chairman) of the company.
In 1911, he lived at Beach House with his wife, Winifred (36); their three daughters, Phyliss (10), Evelyn (8) and Claire (3); and five servants from the Grivell family: cook Priscilla (31), housemaid Caroline (20), kitchenmaid Louisa (14), nursemaid Florence (31) and parlourmaid Alice (22).
Just a few years later, the country was at war. The nature of the fighting led to a vast number of injured soldiers, and the existing military medical facilities in the country were soon overwhelmed. As demand for beds grew, large buildings such as Universities and hotels were transformed into hospitals, and wooden huts sprang up on hospital grounds and at army camps to cope with the numbers. Additional nursing staff were needed and this was met by a mixture of qualified nurses and volunteers.
In response to the crisis, Horace Walker decided to turn Beach House into a Red Cross convalescent home for wounded servicemen. The Beach House Hospital opened on 17 March 1915 with 35 beds. Winifred Walker was named Commandant, assisted by Medical Officer Dr Aubrey and Lady Superintendent Sister Mayne.
One of the patients at Beach House was 23 year-old Private Reginald Sydney Drew of the 1/4 Norfolk Regiment. Reginald suffered the onset of dysentery while stationed at Gallipoli and was transferred to hospital at Lemnos for two weeks before being sent to Almondsbury Subsidiary Hospital in Bristol before being transferred for convalescence to Beach House.
MEDICAL CASE SHEET OF PRIVATE REG.SYNDNEY DREW - 1915 (THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES, REF: MH 106/2083/102 )
The staff at Beach House did their best to keep patients entertained and on 10 February 1916, a concert was held:
Two years after the war ended, the Beach House estate was purchased from Horace by a committee formed by three large Bristol corporations: the Imperial Tobacco Company, H. J. Packer and Co (the chocolate manufacturers, for whom Horace Walker was Chairman) and E. S. and A. Robinson (printers and paper manufacturers).
The plan was to equip the estate as a sanatorium for the use of the companies’ employees, a scheme which unfortunately was never realised (although it went as far as advertising for doctors in The Lancet).
The estate was put up for sale again by July 1920, and remained unsold for the next five years before being sold to Mrs Von Loesch on 16 July 1925 for the sum of £4,500.
HO WILLS LTD ARCHIVE - 1919 (BRISTOL ARCHIVES, REF:38169/HAF/21/22)
House History Package Details:
The owners of Beach House commissioned a Comprehensive House History package, which includes twenty-five hours of professional research (including a day in local archives), and comes with a beautifully designed A2-sized wall print and accompanying printed storybook, including a longer version of the story, a house timeline and a full list of sources consulted, alongside findings, record transcriptions and analysis, and images of all archive documents and material uncovered.
‘One very happy customer! Thank you for the wonderful package of information so beautifully presented. My husband was over the moon and I have been very proud to show this off to curious family and friends. It’s just perfect!’
Learn more about the Comprehensive House History package: