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Having been sold by the Duke of Sutherland in 1917, Lilleshall Hall and its estate passed through various hands until 1932 when the then owner, Herbert Ford, decided to develop a golf course. His inspired choice of H S Colt (famous for his designs at Wentworth, Woodhall Spa, Sunningdale and Royal St George's) as architect resulted in a stunning course that, with only minor alterations over the intervening seven decades, still quite clearly bears the master's hallmark.
The first nine holes (commonly known as the open nine) were built through parkland surrounding the Hall. In 1935 Mr Ford decided to add another nine holes - this time through dense, long established woodland - and again called in H S Colt. The task of clearing glades for fairways engaged sixty men for almost a year. Huge winches were used to remove trees many hundreds of years old. Many of the oldest trees snapped off at ground level and their roots had to be blown up. Five tons of gelignite were used in the process. At the end of the year more than fifty thousand trees had been uprooted. Then the timber had to be removed, the vast craters filled and the ground levelled.
The construction of the greens and fairways, contoured to blend into their natural surroundings, necessitated the removal of many thousands of tons of soil. The remaining acres were conditioned and then seeded under the supervision of experts from Harper Adams agricultural college. The final cost of just over £1,000 per hole was truly exceptional by the standards of the day but the result was a unique and outstanding golf course which demands accuracy above all other golfing virtues.
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Harry S Colt |
