History of Beaumont Park

Just a ten-minute walk away, the Bristol Pau hotel invites you to discover its Beaumont park and its history.

A former seigneury, the estate is owned by Mr Batsalle, deputy mayor under the First Empire.

He soon sold his property - a villa and 11 hectares of parkland - to Mr Briffault, who in turn sold it to the Count of Beaumont in 1834. In 1876, Aristide de Monpezat, mayor at the time, commissioned a public utility survey with a view to purchasing the park.

In 1878, after signing a deed of sale, the de Beaumont family sold off a large part of the park, which was then redeveloped and provided with numerous carriageways. In the 1890s, the remains of the estate were inherited by the poet Anna de Noailles, who rarely lived there, but made her villa and the remains of her gardens available to wealthy tourists. She then rented it briefly to the town, which set up a library and a museum housing collections of paintings and natural sciences.

However, the Countess, who preferred the countryside of Agen to life in Palais, soon sold the villa to the municipality for 800,000 francs. It was demolished in 1895 and replaced by the Winter Palace, built between 1895 and 1899 and inaugurated in 1900.

In the early 1900s, a festive day was in the offing. The park was completely redesigned in 1898 in English style by landscape architect Henri Martinet, notably with the creation of an artificial pond and its island, streams and their false rockeries made of reinforced concrete, just like the waterfalls and bridges.

Beaumont Park

From its pathways converging on the bandstand to its bald cypress lake, Parc Beaumont is home to some very fine trees, many of them over a hundred years old: evergreen redwoods from California, Himalayan cedars, araucarias from Argentina and Chile, Judas trees, horse chestnuts from the Balkans and magnolias.

Bucolic, the Pyrenean garden is reminiscent of the mountains, with its rocks, perennials and streams. Nearby, on the southern slope, the Théâtre de Verdure hosts shows in summer.

To make sure you feel welcome, we offer a range of activities such as walking, jogging, cycling, sitting on a bench or on the authorised lawns, all of which, of course, respect the rules of the road.

As far as protection is concerned, the park was classified as a natural site for the first time in its entirety in 1924, then a second time by decree on 16 February 1944 for the Théâtre de Verdure and finally a third time in 1974 for the area around the Palais Beaumont.

Today, the Parc Beaumont is still a place for the people of Pau to gather and relax, and in the summer it hosts events and games for children, including a miniature train and an ice-cream parlour. Every year, it also hosts part of the Fête de la Musique in the Théâtre de Verdure, as well as the Pau Automobile Grand Prix.