Citylife in Lichfield October 2023

Beacon Park
The Gift of Michael
Swinfen-Broun
By Jono Oates
Today, Beacon Park is an important public recreational area just outside the city
centre, with sporting amenities, playgrounds, a café, the formal grounds of the
Museum Gardens, woodland walks and open land for dog walkers, all of which are
provided for locals and visitors to enjoy. The area consists of nearly 70 acres of land, 12
acres of which was provided by one of Lichfield’s major benefactors – Colonel Michael
Swinfen-Broun.
The majority of the land that is now Beacon Park, maintained by Lichfield District Council,
used to be the grounds of a grand stately home, Beacon House or Beacon Place, which had
access via four lodges and was home to some key Lichfield families including George Hand,
Richard and Ellen Jane Hinckley, and Samuel Lipscomb-Seckham.
The house and estate had been sold to the War Department in the 1920s and was used as
offices for the military up until World War Two when the land surrounding the house was
purchased by Colonel Michael-Swinfen-Broun, who owned nearby Swinfen Hall.
In December 1943, at a meeting of the Lichfield City Council it was announced that Colonel
Swinfen-Broun had presented 11.5 acres of land, including pools, part of the Beacon Place Estate,
to the city of Lichfield for use as recreational grounds and also gave £200 to erect fencing around
the grounds. The councillors at the meeting were very appreciative of the very generous offer
and Councillor Averill suggested that the name of the recreational grounds should be called ‘The
Swinfen-Broun Park’ which would ‘keep his memory for ever green in Lichfield’. The council also
listed some of the other benefactions that the Colonel had made in recent years, including
£5,000 in October 1938 to help fund a new Maternity Block at the Victoria Hospital, and £1,200
to be invested in the building of a new sports pavilion in the park, once World War Two had come
to an end.
Due to World War Two, the official opening of the recreational grounds was delayed until 1948,
but in 1946 a dispute arose between Lichfield City Council and the owner of a scrap metal
business. The owner’s business was on Stowe Street, but in 1944 the council had compulsory
purchased the site for a new housing development on the street. The council had offered him
three other locations for his business, each of which he had dismissed as being inappropriate for
storing large quantities of scrap metal. The location he wished to use was at the bottom of
Greenhough Road, but the site overlooked the recreational grounds recently provided by
Colonel Swinfen-Broun and the City Council believed that it would be an eye-sore over the
landscaped gardens. Mr Abbott, Planning Officer for South-East Staffordshire Planning
Committee, said that a scrap metal yard at that location would be ‘most undesirable’ and the
application to build was denied.
Beacon Park was opened officially by the Mayor of Lichfield, Alderman Robert Nevill, on
Saturday 8th May 1948 when they also opened the new miniature golf course. The mayor
thanked Colonel Swinfen-Broun for his very kind benefaction, although the colonel was unable
to attend the opening as he was unwell. Colonel Michael Swinfen-Broun passed away just a
month after the opening of his legacy to Lichfield, on 8th June 1948, aged 90.
In his will of September 1948 Colonel Swinfen-Broun left an estate of net value £328, 417 and
granted probate to Harry JC Winterton, estate agent on Breadmarket Street. As part of the will
the colonel provided a further financial donation for the ‘improvement and laying-out of part of
the Beacon Park Estate in order to make it a beautiful garden for the citizens of Lichfield’.
Lichfield City Council purchased the land surrounding the Beacon Place Estate in 1949 and by
1964, when the former stately home Beacon Place was demolished, the extent of the 70 acres
that we see today was complete.
In October 1972 a stone memorial in memory of the generous benefactor Colonel Michael
Swinfen-Broun was unveiled in Beacon Park by the Mayor of Lichfield, Councillor John Wilson.
The memorial was the idea of Mr John Hall, and the memorial, sculpted to look like an outcrop,
was crafted by workers from Robert Bridgemans and Sons on Quonians Lane. The memorial
stands by the changing rooms block, by the small boating lake, in the park.
Today, the people of Lichfield can enjoy the beautiful surroundings, and facilities, of Beacon Park
just as its main benefactor, Colonel Swinfen-Broun, had visualised in 1943.
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John Wilson unveiling Swinfen-Broun
monument, October 1972
Oil painting, Colonel Michael Swinfen-
Broun
Swinfen-Broun monument, Beacon Park
*Vintage photograph courtesy of the Hub at
St Mary’s photographic collection.
Sources: The British Newspaper Archive; the
Lichfield Lore website.