Whitley Beaumont, Whitley Upper
Whitley Beaumont was an estate in the township of Whitley Upper, five miles to the east of Huddersfield.
Situated within the estate, Whitley Hall was the ancestral seat of the Beaumont family and the surrounding gardens were landscaped by "Capability" Brown circa 1780.
Discovering Old Huddersfield
Extract from Discovering Old Huddersfield (1993-2002) by Gordon & Enid Minter:
Where Botany Lane levels out stop and look over to the left where may be seen the parkland of Whitley Beaumont Hall. Around the year 1200, William de Bellamont, the ancestor of the Beaumonts of Whitley, received ten oxgangs of land in Huddersfield from Roger de Lacy, Lord of the Honour of Pontefract, and by the fourteenth century the family was established here at Whitley and at Crosland Hall in the Mag Valley, near Netherton.
Doubtless, more than one house has stood on the site in Whitley Park but the only one of which there is any record was started by Sir Richard Beaumont who was born in 1574. Over the centuries various heads of the family made alterations and additions to the house which was described in the nineteenth century as an excellent example of an English manor house. Inside, the house was distinguished by many graceful rooms noted for their plasterwork, panelling, decorated ceilings and marble mantelpieces.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the family endeavoured to build up and improve their estates in Lepton, Whitley, Dalton, Kirkheaton and Crosland. The last of the family to live at the Hall was Henry Frederick Beaumont who gave land for the laying out of Beaumont Park near Crosland Moor. By the early years of this century the house stood empty with many of its beautiful rooms dismantled and its grounds lapsing into wilderness. Like so many other landed families the Beaumonts found that the upkeep of their ancestral home was too expensive and so they moved out. Various schemes for the future of the house came to nothing and it was eventually demolished shortly after the Second World War when the area was given over to open-cast mining. After the mining the parkland was restored to something approaching its former glory. Unfortunately, an original deciduous wood was replaced by a plantation of spruce trees which, although they grow more quickly than our native broad leaf trees, are less pleasing to the eye. In early June, the hillside is bright with the flowering of that most common of parkland shrubs, the rhododendron and in their vicinity the remains of a walled garden may be made out.