Chapter Eleven: Keep Things Going, 1928-58
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186 STOKE PARK Switzerland. Recreations: has participated in nearly every British sport. and, finally, a motor service between Slough station and the Address: Creston, Farnham Common, Bucks. Club: Royal Automobile. Stoke Poges Club. It spoke of a ‘remarkably dry and healthy climate, for it stands high above the Thames Valley and sin- On his retirement, the Golf Club Committee, after receiving gularly free from mist and fog. The soil is so light and porous a letter from Pa Jackson ‘expressing his indebtedness to the that little discomfort is felt from the heaviest rains.’ Committee for the assistance they had always given him’, A big change from the 1880s was the availability of houses. resolved: The brochure offered ‘a few houses, already built, for sale on CHAPTER ELEVEN very reasonable terms, and the Stoke Poges Estate Company That the Committee wish cordially to thank Mr Lane-Jackson for his have arranged to build houses to suit purchasers’. farewell letter and to record their report that the invariably pleasant rela- tions which have so long existed between him and them have come to an end and their sincere hope that for many years to come he may enjoy a Keep Things Going, 1928–58 well earned rest after the exacting labours from which he is now retiring. A brochure had been prepared for the sale. It was a more modest affair than those of the 1880s but it nevertheless emphasised the historical lineage: The new mansion built by Thomas Penn about 1760, together with lovely Gardens of sixteen acres in extent, and a Park of 250 acres, is now occu- The Club re-formed pied by the Stoke Poges Club, which is undoubtedly the finest country club in the world. A great entrepreneur and philanthropist It mentioned all the attractive amenities, towns and villages A visit from the Queen nearby – Eton, Windsor Castle, Burnham Beeches, Virginia Gray’s Meadow and the Gardens of Remembrance Water, Ascot and Hawthorne Hill racecourses, Cliveden, Maidenhead, Beaconsfield, Marlow, Henley – and the excel- Tournaments continue lent communications: 40 trains a day from Paddington to Slough, taking 23 to 30 minutes, the Great Western Railway Suspend Rudge forthwith running motor omnibuses to serve the Estate, one going by Salt Hill and the other by Stoke Green to Farnham Royal, Gift of 200 acres 188 STOKE PARK THE FIRST 1,000 YEARS 189 out the Memorandum of Stoke Poges Golf Club Ltd. As Jackson had done when he founded it in 1908, Sir Noel produced a new brochure. In talking about the Old Course, which measured 6,477 yards from the Medal tees, it noted that: ‘A feature, from the point of view of the scratch player, is the number of long and testing second shots to be played if par figures are to be secured.’ At the same time, the brochure assured prospective mem- bers that the average player would not find the course ‘too exacting’. He or she would find the fairways broad, and the The Club re-formed greens, though well-bunkered, large. It continued: ‘The greens themselves are famed for their beautiful putting sur- face, and the fullest use has been made of such natural haz- ards as the lake and stream.’ In 1928, Mr (later Sir) Noel Mobbs bought the Club from Pa Harry Colt had also designed a further nine holes to take Jackson, and he re-formed it in 1929. the short course up to eighteen holes. It was opened in 1929 At the General Meeting of Stoke Poges Golf Club Limited and, though nearly as long as the Old Course, was considered held on Monday, 3 September 1928 at 201 Great Portland to be a little easier. Though they were not permitted on the Street, London W1, Noel Mobbs reported that: Old Course, three- and four-ball matches were allocated on the New. Ladies were also allowed to play on this course at On behalf of Morland Estates Limited he had acquired the whole of the weekends. The clubhouse in 1929, ‘The Upper Portions of which … are being converted into Private shares from Mr Jackson and his friends, who had resigned from the Service Flats ranging from a Bed-Sitting-Room and Bathroom, up to a Hall, two Sitting- board. The brochure also noted that the Club played matches Rooms, two Double Bedrooms, four single Bedrooms and two Bathrooms. These suites will against the Universities and there was also a well-known be self-contained with their own front door.’ Mobbs further reported that: Ladies v. Men Match and the Girls’ Championship. In the 1920s, the News of the World Professional Tournament and the Morland Estates Limited had acquired the freehold of the Estate, London Amateur Foursomes had also been held at the Club. together with the freehold of certain cottages on the property. Harry Colt had also designed an eighteen-hole putting Noel (later Sir Noel) Mobbs took over running the Club and bought the freehold. ‘Pa’ course described in the brochure as ‘quite unique’ (language Mobbs said that Morland Ltd agreed to run a golf club for the Jackson wrote: ‘I could see from the first that it was his ambition to make Stoke Park the finest rendezvous for golfers in the neighbourhood of London. He has extended the short pedants would not like the qualification of the word ‘unique’, Members of the Stoke Poges Golf Club and generally to carry course to one of 18 holes, which, like the old course, was laid out by H.S. Colt.’ 190 STOKE PARK THE FIRST 1,000 YEARS 191 done in one, the Bogey (the word used in those days in the the motor car industry, which was growing rapidly in the early UK for par) was 49. At that point the record round was 40. years of the 20th century. Born in 1878, Noel Mobbs, with The green fee for the first round was one shilling (about his brother Herbert, had formed the Pytchley Autocar £2.75 in today’s money) and six pence (£1.37) for any addi- Company to sell private cars in 1903. He also formed the tional rounds. Pytchley Hire Purchase Company, the first of its kind to offer There was also a practice ground and the offer of lessons easy payment terms for the purchase of motor cars. It became from the professional. the United Motor Finance Corporation and was absorbed As well as golf there was also a Stoke Poges Tennis Club into Mercantile Credit in the 1950s. Mobbs also ran the boasting eight grass courts and two hard courts, with a tennis Anglo-Saxon Insurance Company. pavilion where members could change and where tea could be Mobbs’s automobile business was based in Northampton taken. Members of the Tennis Club also enjoyed the freedom and it also owned garages in Market Harborough and of the main clubhouse and the gardens. Banbury. One source of its income was its dealership in Fiat cars from Italy, and another was royalties from its invention and development of a sliding roof for motor cars. In the aftermath of the First World War, Mobbs became involved with other entrepreneurs, notably Percival (later Sir Percival and finally Lord) Perry, another heavily involved in A great the motor car industry. These entrepreneurs were intrigued by the possibilities of what was then called Slough depot. This depot had been set up towards the end of the war to Tennis was clearly going to be an important activity at the Club. There were eight grass entrepreneur An eighteen-hole putting course was built by the lake. It was designed by Harry Colt and courts and two hard courts, with a tennis pavilion where men and ladies could change and accommodate some of the thousands of motorised army vehi- opened in 1930. Rather expectantly, the Club Brochure wrote: ‘The course is about 600 where they could have tea. Members of the Tennis Club could also use the facilities of the yards in length, and, although every hole can be done in one, the Bogey (NB not Par!) is 49.’ clubhouse and the gardens. cles that had been shipped to the war zone in France. In July and philanthropist 1917 it was calculated that no fewer than 2,540 lorries and 1,486 cars were waiting for urgent repair work either in England or in France. A further 1,800 motorcycles were also maintaining that something is either unique or it is not), and in need of repair. The War Office looked for a suitable site Slough was best known as the place where Sir William ‘a lasting testimony to the skill of its designer’. Who were the Mobbs family that had bought the estate? and discovered what they thought was one at Chippenham, Herschel, royal astronomer to King George III, ‘looked fur- The course was no less than 600 yards in length, and Arthur Noel Mobbs was an entrepreneur who had recog- near Slough, a Buckinghamshire town with about 15,000 ther into space than ever human being did before me’. It was though, as the brochure pointed out, every hole could be nised the potential for developing businesses associated with inhabitants. also known as the birthplace of Elliman’s Embrocation, a 192 STOKE PARK THE FIRST 1,000 YEARS 193 blend of vinegar, turpentine and egg white sold throughout The first person he approached was Sir Percival Perry, who the world to cure both humans and horses! In the 15th cen- had worked for Henry Ford before the war, for the govern- tury Slough Kiln supplied bricks for the construction of Eton ment during the war (for which he was knighted) and for College.