A new Beazer Group, comprising solely the UK housebuilding business, was demerged from Hanson in 1994, and bought by Persimmon plc in 2001.
Jesse's work consisted largely of repairs to the farms and properties around the village, though he did manage to finance his own house at the age of only 26, an unusual achievement for a mason in those times.
In partnership with a local businessman who owned a small plot of land, Cyril built two houses and thus began the building business that was to bear the name C.H.Beazer.
In the event, it was Brian Beazer who took over as managing director in 1968 and it was he who turned this small Bath company into an international construction group.
Beazer (Holdings) was floated on the London Stock Exchange, barely months before the onset of the first major post-war recession.
A failed attempt to buy the UK's largest scaffolding company was followed by the hotly contested purchase of French Kier, a large domestic and international contractor.
The Beazer group was now financially highly geared and had to face both the worldwide property recession and increasing environmental liabilities – the 1989 accounts contained a provision of over $500m, and rising.
[5] This Beazer mark 2 made its own modest acquisitions including paying £35.7 million for the upmarket southern housebuilder Charles Church Developments on 13 May 1996[6][7] and by the end of the 1990s it was producing around 8,000 houses a year.