Clubhouse, Beaconsfield Golf Club, Seer Green, Buckinghamshire

Summary

Golf clubhouse, built 1913-1914 to designs by Stanley Hinge Hamp. Alterations to the east elevation in the 1930s and single-storey extensions to the east and west elevations added in the 1980s.

Description

Golf clubhouse, built 1913-1914 to designs by Stanley Hinge Hamp. Alterations to the east elevation in the 1930s and single-storey extensions to the east and west elevations added in the 1980s.

MATERIALS: red brick with hipped and pitched clay tile roofs. Fenestration is largely of replacement, metal-framed, leaded casement windows in square-headed brick surrounds, most with brick mullions.

PLAN: two-storey principal range orientated broadly north-south with a two-storey cross-range at the southern end giving an L-shaped plan. The northern end of the main range is single storey, partly covered with a late-C20 glazed pavilion roof. The northern end of the east elevation of the main range is taken up by the 1980s single-storey extension. At the east end of the southern cross-range is a detached single-storey pavilion. Internally, the principal space on the ground floor is the Members Lounge which occupies the southern end of the main range. At its north end is an office which is separated from the Men’s Locker Room, with its metal-framed pavilion roof, by a lobby with an entrance to the northern loggia in the west elevation. Running along the west side of the locker room is the Pro Shop. To the north-east of the Member’s Lounge, in the 1980s extension, are a bridge/meeting room, bar area and WCs. At the south end of the Members Lounge, in the cross range, is another lobby giving onto the southern loggia and the newly relocated Ladies Locker Room room at the north end of the cross range. The east end of the cross range is taken up with the kitchen and service rooms. The main stair is located in a full-height bay window adjoining the main entrance at the east elevation of the main block. On the first floor it gives access to the large dining room with a meeting room and stores to the north, and offices and a caretaker’s flat in the cross-range. A stair gives access to an attic room.

The single-storey eastern pavilion is L-shaped in plan with a flat-roofed block to the south.

EXTERIOR: built in a Tudorbethan vernacular style, the west elevation, facing onto the golf course, has a symmetrical two-storey central section with a steeply pitched hipped roof and tall, triple-stack, Tudor-style, decorative chimneys at either end. It has a pair of projecting, full-height, canted bay windows with four-light windows with brick mullions and deep brick parapets with stone capping. These were originally of pierced brickwork but have been rebuilt. The parapet between the bays has a later clock face. Between the two bays a loggia projects forward on the ground floor. This has two outer brick piers and a pair of inner brick columns. The roof of the loggia originally had a pierced brick balustrade, matching the parapets, but this has been lost. Giving on to the roof of the loggia are two pairs of French windows, with multi-pane glazing in timber frames. The sections either side of the bays have triple-light windows to each floor, that on the southern end of the ground floor replaced by a 1980s bay with corresponding triple windows. The returns have a hipped dormer window in the hipped roof. At each end of the elevation are single-storey pavilions with hipped roofs. Recessed loggias, with a pair of brick columns, give access to the men’s (north end) and women’s (south end) locker rooms via arched doorways in the returns. The terminations of the elevation each have a deeply concave brick oeil-de boeuf window. At the north end, the elevation is extended by the projecting, single-storey, Pro Shop. This has a hipped roof and the southern part is modern with a glazed shopfront in the return and a yellow brick oeil-de boeuf, with a stone plaque in the centre bearing the club badge in relief. The original northern section has mullion windows and a hip-roofed projection.

The eastern (entrance) elevation of the principal range is irregular with a centrally placed full-height canted bay containing the main stair, with mullioned windows on both floors in the section south of the bay. The window bay has a deep parapet, with stone coping, extending above the level of the roof eaves and with an upper section of decorative pierced brickwork, of the type lost on the west elevation bays. It has a nine-light, mullion and transom window and is adjoined on its northern side by a recessed arched entrance beneath a sweeping roof. This is a replacement for the original entrance which was slightly further to the north. On the north side of this is a projecting flat-roofed, single-storey, modern extension of orange brick which wraps around the north end of the original elevation. This has a parapet and three-light mullion windows. Behind the extension the roof line has been altered. This originally had a pair of hipped dormer windows to the north of the bay but only the southern one survives. The northern one was replaced by a projecting hipped roof (with a hipped dormer, matching or incorporating the original one) which, along with an L-shaped hipped roof just to the north, was added when the elevation was extended forward in the inter-war period. Between the two replacement hipped roofs is a tall chimney.

The north elevation of the cross range has a crowstep gable where it meets the principal range, with a pair of mullion windows on the first floor and mullion and transom window on the ground floor. East of this is a section of roof with low overhanging eaves and a hipped dormer window, with a pair of windows on the ground floor. The eastern end of the range has a set-back gable, with a triple-light mullion window and tall chimney with a corbelled top, and an attached semi-gable. Extending from the range is a brick wall with Roman tile capping linking with the eastern pavilion. This has an arched doorway with a panelled door. The southern elevation has a pair of projecting gables linked by a section of roof with a pair of hipped dormer windows. The western gable takes the form of a large, white-painted, half-timbered gabled dormer window with a four-light window with transoms. It is connected to the eastern gable by a low section of roofing with overhanging eaves forward of the main roof, giving a sweeping effect. Fenestration on the ground floor is of double or triple mullioned windows with a four-light mullion window to the first floor of the east gable.

The L-plan single-storey eastern pavilion has hipped roofs with overhanging eaves, a prominent stepped chimney to a gable on the east elevation and mullion windows.

INTERIOR: the principal room on the ground floor is the Members Lounge, designed as a neo-medieval parlour. This has a beam ceiling of unpainted oak timber with moulded beams and joists and a row of three posts down the spine of the room. At either end of the room are large, matching projecting fireplaces. These have stone surrounds with moulded hearths and carved straight-stemmed foliage decoration to the spandrels. The plasterwork overmantels have bands of floral decoration in relief and central niches with decorated keystones. In the north-east corner of the room is a bar hatch with an oak surround with narrow panelling. The bar, which also serves the bridge/meeting room, has oak bar-backs. In the east wall are a pair of brick arches. The northern arch gives access to the stair lobby; this is panelled with a door with a triangular glazed light to what was originally a telephone kiosk. The signage survives. An arch with a multi-pane glazed door gives access to the 1930s entrance lobby. This retains the mullion window, now internal, of the original elevation. The southern arch opens onto the main stair and is filled with an iron screen in its upper part. The winder stair has oak dado panelling and handrails and an ornate carved lion to the finial. The polygonal ceiling over the stairwell has decorative bands of plasterwork. On the west side of the lounge, the bay windows, either side of a pair of French windows onto the course, are framed by polygonal pilasters with corbelled capitals of narrow bricks. The bays have fixed bench seats. The lounge has a parquet floor.

To the north of the lounge the principal space is the Men’s Locker Room with its late-C20 glazed pavilion roof supported on four timber queen-post trusses. The walls have two tiers of wooden lockers and benches. The lockers and benches may be of earlier date than the roof. The adjoining visitors' locker room is plainer with a beam ceiling. At the southern end of the building, the Ladies' Locker Rooms were relocated from the east end of the cross range and refitted in 2007. The locker fittings date from then. There is a fireplace with a tiled surround matching that in the office at the other end of the lounge. To the south of the Ladies Locker Room, the cross wing contains modernised kitchens, WCs and other ancillary rooms. A closed-string secondary stair with stick balusters and moulded handrail gives access to the upper floor.

The principal space on the first floor is the dining room. This has an oak timber-framed barrel-vaulted roof with three arched crown-post trusses with curved braces. The brackets supporting the tie beams are decorated with carved grotesques and the trusses and purlins are moulded. The room has small-squared oak wall panelling above which is a plaster frieze with cross, flower, animal and bird motifs in relief. Over this (on the east and west walls) is a moulded timber wall-piece/cornice. At each end of the room are projecting stone fireplaces like those on the ground floor but with a two stage overmantle with the lower stage having a moulded panel and the upper part a continuation of the frieze with the same decorative motifs augmented by a pair of monograms or initials and a figure of a golfer. The two bay windows on the west side, either side of four French windows onto the balcony, have oak panelled bench seats and there is a panelled bar hatch in the north-east corner. The room at the south end of the main range has exposed timber framing to the side walls. The first-floor of the cross wing is largely taken up with the caretaker’s flat.

History

Beaconsfield Golf Club, originally the Wilton Park Golf Club, was founded by Colonel William Baring Du Pre (1875-1946) in 1902. The Wilton Park estate had been acquired around 1770 by Josias Du Pre, who was of Huguenot descent. He was a director of the East India Company and, from 1770 to 1773, Governor of Madras. William Du Pre, later MP for High Wycombe between 1914 and 1923, succeeded to the Wilton Park Estate in 1896. A noted international croquet player, he developed a keen interest in golf and initially established a nine-hole course on the estate. In 1913 Du Pre decided to expand the course to eighteen-holes and employed Harry Colt (1869-1951) to design it. Colt was already noted as a course designer, having designed some twenty courses, and went on to be one of the most famous golf course designers, with involvement at over 300 clubs in 24 countries including those at Sunningdale (1923) and Wentworth (1924 and 1926).

The clubhouse for the new course, built between 1913 and 1914, was designed by Stanley Hamp in a Tudorbethan vernacular style. The new club (now renamed Beaconsfield Golf Club) and clubhouse were opened on Saturday 18 July 1914, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War which resulted in the club not being fully operational until 1920. In 1915, as a result of negotiations over the new Great Western and Great Central Joint Line which crossed the Wilton estate, a railway halt (now Seer Green station) for the use of the golf club opened just to the east of the clubhouse. The new course and club house were originally leased from the estate by Beaconsfield Golf Club Ltd but in 1951 the freehold was purchased by the club for £12,000.

The original drawings show the clubhouse with a symmetrical western elevation but a single-storey northern extension (with a tall chimney, now removed) was later included. This is shown on the 1924 Ordnance Survey map, and on an undated postcard, probably also from the 1920s, and so may well be a contemporary amendment to the original design. At some time prior to 1938, a single-storey extension was added to the east elevation which was replaced by the current larger flat roofed extension built in the 1980s. A small outshut and an extension to the Pro shop were added to the western elevation probably at the same time. The current glazed pavilion roof over the men’s changing room replaced a flat roof and post-dates the 1960s. The building's original metal framed windows were largely replaced in the early C21.

Stanley Hinge Hamp (1877-1968) served his apprenticeship from 1893 with Thomas Edward Collcutt (1840-1924) of London, designer of the Imperial Institute in South Kensington (1887-93) and the Palace Theatre (1888-91) and Wigmore Hall (1904) in the West End. Hamp remained as his assistant until 1904 when he briefly left to establish his own practice. In 1906, however, he returned to enter into partnership as Collcutt and Hamp. Hamp's arrival secured the partnership's commercial and architectural success in the transition from the pre- to post- First World War eras becoming a major early-C20 commercial practice; as A Stuart Gray describes, he 'introduced a quite extraordinary exuberance into the firm's work'. Hamp continued to practice after Collcutt’s retirement in 1920, designing the Art Deco style Adelphi office block, LB Westminster between 1936 and 1938 (Listed at Grade II) and a number of Moderne houses in Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield of which Whitelands, 75 Gregories Road, Beaconsfield (1933-4) is listed at Grade II.

Reasons for Listing

The clubhouse at Beaconsfield Golf Club, built between 1913 and 1914 to designs by Stanley Hinge Hamp, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the lively Vernacular Revival exterior and impressive and richly decorated interior;

* for the high-quality craftsmanship of the brickwork and interior decoration and fittings;

* as an example of the work of Stanley Hinge Hamp, a notable and versatile architect of the late C19 and early C20.

Historical interest:

* as a rare well-surviving example of a pre-First World War, purpose-built golf clubhouse from the first major period of expansion of golf courses in England between 1890 and 1914;

* for its association with its founder, William Baring Du Pre, an international sportsman, soldier and MP, Harry Colt, the renowned golf course designer and notable club members including Cecilia “Cecil” Leitch, Peter Alliss and Luke Donald.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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