‘Awful’: climate crisis threatens to sink
historic north-east golf club
Saving Alnmouth from rising seas and coastal erosion
complicated by links course being on private land
Morgan
Ofori
Tue 2 Apr
2024 05.00 BST
For most
golfers, the most damage a furious wind can do is to your handicap – and, if
you are really unfortunate, your car windshield.
But
visitors to Alnmouth village golf club in Northumberland have to contend with
the prospect of storms and rising sea levels consigning the oldest nine-hole
links course in the country to history.
There are
fears that the historic golfing attraction will disappear as a result of
coastal erosion, the undefended area closest to the sea near the fifth hole is
especially at risk.
“I don’t
think in another 100 years we will be playing golf here, I think it’s changed
that much in the last 30 years,” said the club secretary Ian Simpson, who has
been a member for more than a decade.
Simpson’s
daughter, Emelia, who is club manager, added: “No one wants to play on an
eight-hole golf course.”
Built in
1869 by the Scottish golfer Mungo Park, it is classed as being in an area of
natural outstanding beauty (AONB) and it counts the Northern Irish professional
Ronan Rafferty and the former Dutch football international Ruud Gullit among
its past members. The club said at least 25 to 30 yards of the course closest
to the sea had eroded, with bath houses that lined up along the boundaries
being washed away and about 10ft of sand having been lost by the second and
third tee.
Valerie
Barkley, a member of four years, said golf was the only sport she liked and
being part of a strong female representation at the club – which has about
10,000 visitors a year.
She said:
“The ladies section meet on Wednesday and play competitions. I’m on the
committee, we’ve brought friends that have gone on to join. If it was to go it
would be awful, I’m rather selfishly hoping not in my lifetime.”
Ian Simpson
has suggested rock armour, which is used in harbours to defend coastlines, may
solve the issue but matters had been complicated by the fact that the club is
on private land owned by the Duke of Northumberland and maintained by patrons,
the burgage holders of Alnmouth Common. The club cannot drastically alter the
makeup of the coastline without permission.
The climate
campaign group One Home sees the golf club, and neighbouring village, as
symbols for wider trends of losing sporting, recreation, heritage and religious
sites along the whole of English coast.
Angela
Terry, the chief executive of One Home, said: “On top of these losses,
infrastructure including roads and landfill sites, businesses and homes are
falling into the sea at an accelerating rate.
“The
government’s response is to pass responsibility between overstretched and often
bankrupt local authorities and the Environment Agency teams who are working
desperately hard to hold back the sea but it’s a losing battle due to sea level
rise and stronger storms.”
Terry added
that it was unlikely that any national coast erosion risk maps were updated
with climate projections or land losses seen on the ground.
The local
county council says protecting private land from coastal erosion is the
responsibility of the landowner. Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer
The
Environment Agency points to funding awarded in February to Northumberland
county council to enforce flood management and coastal erosion control and use
as it sees fit.
A
spokesperson for the council said protecting private land from coastal erosion
was the responsibility of the landowner but contact had been made with Alnmouth
golf club to offer advice on short-term solutions while longer term
implications were being considered.
They added:
“The majority of funding for coastal defence works comes from the Environment
Agency and usually, to attract sufficient funding for a scheme to be viable,
residential properties must be protected.”
Martin
Swinbank, Green councillor for the local Alnwick ward, said a 100-year
shoreline management plan, which runs from the Scottish border to the River
Tyne, was launched in 2009. It aimed to intervene in the area where the club
was based but the climate crisis accelerated by “human activity” – burning
fossil fuels – had reinforced coastal erosion.
Anne-Marie
Trevelyan, the Conservative MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, said she had written to
the culture and environment secretaries to seek their support to protect the
club from the risk of coastal erosion.
She added:
“While our unique Northumberland landscape is breathtakingly beautiful, it
presents us with challenges too, which I will continue to take up with the
government and other responsible bodies on behalf of my constituents.”
Established 1869, Alnmouth is the fourth oldest
golf club in England.
https://www.alnmouthgolfclub.com/the-golf-club/club-history/
This is
where it all began.
In August,
1869 Captain Arthur Walker, on behalf of a number of others, issued a notice to
probable members about the forming of a golf club in Alnmouth. It is believed
that the course in Alnmouth village was designed and created by Mungo Park, a
youngish man at the time, who was to become a famous golf professional and the
Club’s first professional.
The first
Annual Meeting of the Club is recorded as taking place in October of the same
year, according to the notice, a copy of which is held at the Club.
The first
competition for the Percy Medal was played in the Autumn of 1869 on the 19th of
October, resulting in a win for Captain Walker, the secretary, with a score of
81. The notice for the Autumn meeting also mentions a silver Challenge Cross,
presented by a member of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, a Mr.
Charles Walker.
The first
winner of this medal was the Revd. A. Medd with a score of 119 strokes for 18
holes. There is no record, however, to say when this medal round was played. It
may have been a second day’s competition at the October meeting or played for
later in the year.
Further
challenge prizes were given shortly after this. In 1870 Mr. A.H. Browne
presented the Browne Cup to be followed by the Cadogan Medal from Mr. C.W.
Cadogan. These were to be played for at the Spring meeting in 1870, starting
with the Browne Cup which Mr. C.E. Riddell won with a score of 92. This
particular meeting was celebrated in the evening with a fireworks display at
which all the villagers were present. The following Spring the Cadogan Medal
was played for as the first prize when Mr. Alexander Strath won it with a score
of 79, and the Browne Cup became the second prize. The disparity between all
these winning scratch scores must be of some academic interest! From what
appears later in the records, it is presumed that members arranged matches between
themselves on whatever terms they chose. Twice a year however, there were
special gatherings for competitions – the Spring and Autumn meetings. While on
the subject of the earlier trophies, the Wilson Snuff Box appeared in 1893 with
the Tate Prize in 1906. From that date until the early thirties no other prizes
were given for annual competition. All of these are still played for today.
In
September 1881 a professional tournament was organised by the Club together
with Mungo Park the professional/ greenkeeper. The Club provided prize money of
£27, with £12 for the winner, £7, £5, £2, and £1 for the runners up. M.
Ferguson won the event with a score of 160 for four rounds of nine holes. The
Park family name dominated the players list:
M. Park
(Alnmouth) – fourth with 172
W. Park Jr.
(Ryton) – equal with 172
F. Park
(Musselburgh) – 187
Later, in
1887 there is reference to another professional tournament and doubtless there
were many others. An annual publication, “The Golfing Annual and Club
Directory” for 1887/88 published subscriptions of ten shillings and sixpence
with a membership total of 160.
So,
Alnmouth had now taken its place among the earliest courses and Clubs in
England, sharing fourth place in this respect with Hoylake (Royal Liverpool),
their predecessors being Blackheath -1608; Westward Ho (Royal North Devon) in
1864; and Royal Wimbledon in 1865. Moreover, Alnmouth played its part as one of
the sponsors of the Amateur Championship. It was in 1885 that the Royal
Liverpool Club (Hoylake) actually introduced the competition and Alnmouth with
23 other clubs controlled this event until the year 1919.
Ladies
played golf at Alnmouth long before they formed their own club, as early as
1881, the Newcastle Daily Journal printed a note saying that the Alnmouth
Ladies had made a request to the men’s club to play a horse shoe round on the
links. The Alnmouth Ladies Golf Club was formed in 1907, they held their first
committee meeting in July 1908 and the first Lady Captain was Mrs MacLean who
was in office from 1908 to 1911.
In the late
1920’s the Duke of Northumberland was approached and consented to lease a
further piece of land in order to make a new 18 hole course. A survey of the
land was made by Mr HS Colt the famous golf architect and his report was
published in the Newcastle Journal on the 4th July 1929. The land surrounded
Foxton Hall, one of the historic residences of the Percy family, which was to
be used as the clubhouse. The plans included using a portion of the building as
a ‘Dormy House’ which is still in existence today.The adoption of the Foxton
Hall scheme was reported on the 10th December 1929 with the new club to come
into being on the 1st January 1930. The first membership subscription was 5
guineas, 4 guineas for ladies. In the early days the original 9 holes remained
part of Alnmouth Golf Club and thus the club had two courses. The new course
was opened on the 9 May 1931, but sadly the the 8th Duke of Northumberland died
suddenly in August and was therefore not present to witness his vision. In 1936
Alnmouth Village Golf Club was formed and took over the running of the old
links. Since that time the club’s have maintained their historical links and
still play a number of special combined competitions, the most famous called
‘the upper and downer’ a match between the two clubs played on a combination
course of the back nine holes at Foxton (the upper) and the nine holes of the
old links (the downer).
From the
book on the history of Alnmouth Golf Club called Golf at Alnmouth written by
D.P. Walton published in 1992 and recently updated in 2004 by former Secretary
Peter McIlroy.
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