Berry Head House (now used as the Berry Head Hotel) is a large detached house in Brixham,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is listed Grade II on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

History

The building was originally built in 1809 by the Board of Ordinance as a military hospital in support of the three Napoleonic war forts on

Berry Head Berry Head is a coastal headland that forms the southern boundary of Tor Bay in Devon, England. Lying to the east of the town of Brixham, it is a national nature reserve and a local nature reserve. Berry Head To Sharkham Point is a Site of Sp ...

. Later it became the home of the hymnist and poet

Henry Francis Lyte Henry Francis Lyte (1 June 1793 – 20 November 1847) was an Anglican divine, hymnodist, and poet. Biography Youth and education Henry Francis Lyte was the second son of Thomas and Anna Maria (née Oliver) Lyte, whose family came originally fr ...

who turned the building into a country house and bought the surrounding lands.

Library

In the ground of the property, Lyte wrote the words to the Hymn " Abide with Me" and "

Praise, my soul, the King of heaven "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven" is a Christian hymn. Its text, which draws from Psalm 103, was written by Anglicanism#Anglican divines, Anglican divine (clergyman) Henry Francis Lyte. First published in 1834, it endures in modern hymnals to ...

". Lyte built up a library in the house which was described as "one of the most valuable libraries in the Southwest of England". The library took 17 days of auctions to sell in London.

Ownership

The building was also the home to the photographer Farnham Maxwell-Lyte and was linked to Sir Henry Churchill Maxwell-Lyte. Evelyn George Martin a guest of Lyte family, and lived at Berry Head between his school terms at Eton College. A plaque was unveiled in May 2013 to commemorate Martin's time spend at the house. The house remained with Lyte's descendants until 1949 when it was turned into the Berry Head Hotel. The house was sold by James Arthur Palmes, only surviving son of Arthur Lindsay Palmes and Alice Massingberd Maxwell Hogg (granddaughter of HF Lyte) but other parts of the estate were sold off later, including the Berry Head Forts and Headland. Berry Head Farmhouse was sold by the family in the 1990s.

Hotel

The hotel is currently run by a company called the Berry Head Hotel Limited and owned by the Bence Family.

References

{{coord, 50, 24, 2.9, N, 3, 29, 40.7, W, type:landmark, display=title Brixham Grade II listed buildings in Devon Grade II listed houses Defunct hospitals in England 1803 establishments in England