Beaulieu, sometimes known as New Hall, was an Essex country house that Henry VIII bought for £1,000 from Sir Thomas Boleyn, father of the king’s future second wife.
Plans were laid immediately for its expansion and work was put in the charge of one of Wolsey’s building administrators, William Bolton, who was also in charge of works at Hampton Court. The king spent at least £17,000 rebuilding the house and more furnishing it; one of the clerks of the Great Wardrobe was sent to Flanders and returned with 108 tapestries all measured to fit specific rooms. Henry thought his new house so beautiful that he announced that its name would be changed to Beaulieu – beautiful place.
Sir Francis Bryan was made the master of the hunt for Beaulieu. He was one of the king’s closest friends, a member of the privy chamber and the master of the toils, the man in charge of the king’s hunting equipment. This appointment signalled the purpose of this new acquisition, it was an eastern version of Woodstock; Beaulieu lay on the northern edge of the great royal forest of Essex the rump of which we know today as Epping Forest – the king wanted to turn it into a major royal seat where guests could be entertained and he could hunt with his friends. In 1523 Henry created Beaulieu an honour, that is to say the administrative centre of a large number of royal estates, a badge of considerable status.
Henry used the place much less towards the end of his reign after Hampton Court and Oatlands were finished and, in his will, it was left to his daughter Princess Mary. Under Elizabeth I it was one of the houses that she got rid of as she tried to reduce the massive portfolio of royal houses. It thus left royal ownership in 1573.
Although nothing significant of Henry VIII’s house remains on the site today (which is now a school), a plan survives that shows the large stables and the tennis court features that would have been part of Henry VIII’s conversion of the original building into a pleasure house.