Hale - Golf Club

The Context

Hale Golf Club was formed in 1903, but it was by no means the earliest of the golf clubs in Trafford. There had been a huge explosion in the popularity of the sport towards the end of the nineteenth century. In 1880 England had only 12 courses, [1] but between 1890 and 1914 1200 new clubs were formed, with the number of players involved greatly increased by the inclusion of women into the sport.

The formation of the Ladies Golf Union in 1893 and, in the same year, the introduction of the first championship for women, were key moments in the development of the sport. Women’s golf now had a national body to organise tournaments, establish handicaps and to encourage participation. The number of women participating in the sport brought about the gradual changing of golf clubs from being traditional male preserves into more mixed social clubs.

At an early stage in the growth of the sport golf quickly proved to be very popular as a form of recreation in Trafford.

The earliest club in the area was Davyhulme Golf Club.  Golf had been played at Davyhulme Hall, possibly in the 1860s, and certainly by 1883 when there were separate clubhouses for both men and women. The Entwistle Golf Club was founded there in 1893 and moved to Flixton to form Flixton Golf Club in 1903. Davyhulme Park formed in 1911.[2]

Other early clubs in Trafford were Bowdon (Dunham Massey) Golf Club (1890 - 1956) which was situated in Dunham Village, between Back Lane, Waterhouse Lane and the Bridgwater Canal [3] and Old Trafford/Trafford (1891 - 1920), next to the Lancashire County Cricket Ground. [4] Timperley Golf Club, (Altrincham), was founded as a private club in 1893. By April 1894, it had 220 members, 40 of which were women. It was purchased by Altrincham District Council which outbid members of the club in 1934 when it came up for sale after the death of the owner. [5] Flixton was founded in 1893; [6]  Ashton on Mersey, in 1897; [7] Hale in 1903; [8] Ringway in 1909 [9] and Sale founded in 1913.[10]  

The Foundation of Hale Golf Club

On 9 December 1902 a letter was circulated inviting prospective members to discuss the formation of a golf club at a “prettily situated ground” in Hale. [11] The meeting was held on 16 December.[12] According to Neal Hyde’s history of the first century of the club: ‘Around 1902 a group of members of Timperley Golf Club, which was then a private members club, had informal discussions amongst themselves to explore the possibility of forming a golf club in the Hale District.’

After a second public meeting in February 1903, Mr Whalley of Rossmill Farm was approached with a view to obtaining a lease for 7 years. He agreed with conditions that no golf be played on a Sunday and that cattle and sheep should be allowed to continue to graze on the course. [13]

In April 1903 the Manchester Courier formerly announced the formation of a new golf club at Hale and that nearly 80 gentlemen and 30 ladies had sent their names in as members. It was expected to be the prettiest in the district and would open for play at some point later in April.[14]

The club started with 73 male members and 25 women (54 by time club opened). Most of these lived very close to the new course. However, although lady members were able to join, they were not allowed to vote at any meeting. [15] Women were not afforded the privilege of full membership until 2002.[16]

A Hale Golf Cub fixture card for the 1904 – 5 season, obtained by the Manchester Courier, showed that the new club, ‘has also got quite a pretentious list of fixtures for its first year’, and that there was an ambitious list for the lady members, with plenty of prizes.[17]

The site chosen was in what would now be described as ‘Green Belt’ land close to the River Bollin.

The clubhouse was built in the left-hand corner of the large, diamond-shaped field with the footpath (marked as F.P.) running diagonally across it, between the boundary of the Grange, now the Priory Hospital and the woods on the right-hand bank of the River Bollin, above Jackson’s Bank. The footpath still runs in front of the clubhouse on more or less the same line as on the above map.

The course was designed as and remains to this day a nine-hole course, ‘Charmingly situated in the valley of the River Bollin, and far away from the disturbing influences of business life, the Hale links are ideally located.’ [18]

A view of the site of Hale Golf Course which would have been familiar to local people before the course was constructed can be seen below.

Towards the end of May 1903, the Altrincham and Bowdon Guardian reported the opening of the golf links. The club had 150 members, a president, Mr Henry Galloway, and a captain, Walter Ibbotson. A professional, Mr. J.J. Corlett, had already been appointed, and the club boasted a beautiful pavilion designed by an eminent architect. The course was officially opened by the club’s president, in the presence of about a hundred members and friends. [19]

The new club was keen to set up a new clubhouse, or pavilion as soon as practicable. Clearly the club was reasonable well-endowed and fortunate enough to be able to engage the architect William Owen to design its first pavilion, which, as seen in the plans below, was, to all intents and purposes, an elaborate wooden shed with a tin roof. It was completed a week before opening and cost a total of £450 (about £70,000 in today’s prices),[20]^,[21] Owen continued to act in this role in an honorary capacity until he died in 1909.

The lady golfer shown above at the first hole of Hale Golf Club was Charlotte (Lottie) Dod, born in 1871 in Bebbington on the Wirral. She was winner of the British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship in 1904 as well having the distinction of being four times winner of Wimbledon, the first when she was fifteen, the youngest player ever to achieve this feat.

Once her tennis career ended, she twice played hockey for England and later won a silver medal at the 1908 London Olympics for archery. She served as a nurse for the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in the First World War. She died in 1960, aged 88, while listening to a radio broadcast of Wimbledon in bed.[22]

William Owen, The Architect of the First Clubhouse

William Owen (19 February 1852 – 5 August 1909) with offices in Altrincham and at Duchy Chambers, Clarence Street, Manchester, was the architect appointed to design the first clubhouse. He was born in Altrincham and educated in Bowdon and Manchester School of Art.

He was a distinguished architect, responsible for designing several buildings of note in the Altrincham area. These include: - Altrincham Isolation Hospital; Navigation Road School, Broadheath; Normanhurst, Brooklands Road, Sale; the Chapel at Altrincham General Cemetery, Hale Road, Hale and the Baptist Chapel on the corner of Byrom Street and Hale Road, Bowdon. He was one of the first members of the Hale District Council, and in 1903 was appointed to the chair. [23]

The Plans

Trafford Local Studies holds three envelopes of plans related to Hale Golf Club. Interspersed amongst them and in a fourth envelope are several plans of large houses in the Hale district, some drawn up by Owen, including a semi-detached pair very near the golf club on a road leading from Harrop Road.[24]

The earliest plan for the original clubhouse was drawn up by Owen in 1903 and approved, subject to byelaws on 31 March that year. These show the proposed golf clubhouse & block plan.[25]

The plan is for a timber framed, pavilion style building with elements of mock tudor style, with a corrugated iron roof painted in a tile colour. The building consisted of a central club room, 28’ x 16’, with a verandah running the full length at the front of the building.

On each side of the club room were dressing rooms and toilets, the gents on the left and ladies on the right, both of the same size, though the ladies’ area was accessible from a porch on the side, as well as from the club room.

At the rear of the club room was a bar and a kitchen with a range and sink. Behind the bar was a workshop and behind the kitchen was a covered caddy shelter. In 1907 the only access to the clubhouse was still the public footpath,[26] which led from the unadopted Rappax Road.

In the detailed sections above the pavilion-like nature of the building with its balustraded verandah to the front is clear to see.

The Block Plan in the same envelope shows the position of the clubhouse. It can be seen from the rear section CD above and the section AB in the previous plan that the building is to be constructed on piles at the rear. This is to allow for the slope of the land and replaces the need to level out the site for a relatively light weight building.

The later plans held at Trafford Local Studies make it clear that the clubhouse was subject to a number of piecemeal alterations over a lengthy period. The second envelope of plans shows William Owen’s proposals for the alteration to the front of the Hale Golf Club clubhouse, approved on 15 Dec 1907.      

The plan shows details of a balustrade to form a terrace wall at the front of the clubhouse. The plans proposed to enclose about a third of the verandah to the left to form a new entrance to the clubhouse. They also indicate that a workshop to the right and a cottage to the left, indicated on the plan as Caretaker’s house, were now part of the building.

The plans for this cottage, designed by Owen, were passed in January 1907, but are not included in the Trafford Local Studies collection. The cottage was originally for the accommodation of the club professional and remained as such until 1948 when it became home for the steward. According to Neal Hyde’s History of Hale Golf Club it had no heating, lighting or toilet facilities when constructed. Gas lights were installed in July 1907 throughout cottage and clubhouse, and electric lighting was installed in 1919.[27]

The third envelope of plans, Envelope 805 to 808, shows proposals for further alterations. These took place over a period of time from 1912 until 1949 and plot the evolution of the pavilion from its first manifestation. The plans were each drawn up by different architects.

Plan PLA/2/HAL/1912/1/808, approved subject to byelaw on 16 September 1912, is a proposal drawn up by Frank B. Butler, Architects and Surveyors of Market Street, Altrincham to convert the caddy store at the rear of the kitchen into an extension to the kitchen which would be accessible from the outside by steps, nine feet above the ground level. The walls of the extension would be boarded to match the existing building, and the roof covering would be corrugated iron.

Plans show that what was marked as Gents’ dressing room to the left of the club room were extended into the space between the end of the verandah and the caretaker’s house to provide additional toilets. The plans included moving the lavatory basins from the original dressing room and refitting them in the new extension.

An addition to pavilion at Hale Golf Club in the form of an extension to the front of the building in front of the Ladies Cloak Room on the right-hand side of the club room to form a Parlour was put forward. The proposal was drawn up by F.R. Pearson, Hale, architect and approved subject to byelaws 27 May 1929. The construction was timber studding and weatherboarding.

Plan for an addition to the Ladies room on the right-hand side of the building and a new Ladies toilet at the rear of the ladies’ locker room by J.H. Smith, (Hale) Ltd and approved subject to byelaws 20 Mar 1939.

These plans provide for a significant extension and alterations to the existing building by architects Brazier and Hartington, 7 Market Street, Altrincham, approved 26 April 1949. The original building was proposed to be extended to the right to provide separate facilities for Ladies – a lounge 29’6” x 19’3”, cloakroom. The extension was to be constructed using sheet asbestos wall coverings on a brick foundation, with grey asbestos tiles on the roof.

A vestibule joined this new extension to the existing building. The original ladies’ cloakroom was to be converted to an additional facility for men. The bar was to be moved to the right-hand side of the lounge, with a beer cellar below. The original verandah is now completely enclosed. The lounge was now a dining room, and the lounge was moved to the front of the building over the existing verandah. A dormer was proposed to be constructed above the old lounge with a cupola on the top.

A plan of the clubhouse prior to 1974 in Neal Hyde’s history of Hale Golf Club[28] shows a different arrangement on the right-hand side of the clubhouse whereby the building outlined in red above was constructed without the proposed vestibule to join it to the existing clubhouse and its function was as a men’s locker room and lavatory. The ladies’ lockers and lounge remained where they were after alterations in 1939 (above).

The building was eventually joined but not until after alterations in 1974 – 6, according to a plan on p.62 of the same history,[29] with a further extension to the right-hand end of the building for a professional golfer’s shop and the green staff in 1992.

Although the clubhouse was situated in a beautiful location, its remoteness caused the club several times to be the target of crime over the years. In 1933 a man from Altrincham, who had previously been imprisoned for similar offences, was sent to gaol for six months for stealing items from a car parked at the club whilst members were playing.[30] A Cheadle Hulme man was fined £150 in 1965 for receiving 31 golf clubs, 2 golf bags and 7½ dozen golf balls stolen from the club professional.[31]

In 1971 Golf clubs, bags and golf clothing worth £650 were stolen in a break-in at the professional shop. [32] In 1981 masked thieves armed with a gun and an axe, broke into the home of the steward next to Hale Golf Club. They cut telephone wires, threatened the inhabitants, demanded the keys to the safe and locked members of the family in the cellar. Cash and jewellery worth £1356 were stolen.[33] A very similar raid took place at Higher Irlam Social Club a few days later. [34]

Further Changes to the Construction of the Clubhouse

The club was able to purchase the course from the trustees who owned the land in 1968, with the result that it no longer had to be concerned with regular negotiations of the lease and members could now be confident about investing in developing its facilities.[35]  

This purchase was followed in the 1970s by internal modifications and dealing with aspects of the old wooden structure of the clubhouse, upgrades to the steward’s cottage in 1986, and a minor extension in 1993. The members then took the decision to construct a new clubhouse in time for the club’s centenary in 2003.

The work started in October 1995 and was finished in May the following year. It was built at a cost of a little over £400,000 in a similar architectural style to the original clubhouse and on a similar layout to the alterations proposed in 1949, but with modern facilities. The steward’s cottage was retained as part of the new building.[36] The club house was further renovated in 2017 at a cost of £500,000. The renovations were designed by Jonty Fallow, a club member.[37]

Author: Richard Nelson, Volunteer, Trafford Local Studies

Further Research

You can find more building plans and archival records using the Trafford Local Studies catalogue

Sources

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_golf [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[2] https://www.davyhulmeparkgolfclub.co.uk/history/ [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[3] https://www.golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/england/north-west/cheshire/488-manc-bowdon-golf-club-dunham-massey-altrincham [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[4] https://www.golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/england/north-west/cheshire/1253-eng-nw-old-trafford-golf-club-manchester?highlight=WyJ0cmFmZm9yZCJd [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[5] https://www.golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/england/north-west/cheshire/517-manc-timperley-golf-club-cheshire [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[6] https://www.englandgolf.org/club-detail?clubId=100645 [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[7] https://www.ashtononmerseygolfclub.co.uk/ [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[8] Neal Hyde, Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003.

[9] https://www.englandgolf.org/club-detail?clubId=101376 [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[10] https://www.salegolfclub.com/ [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].

[11] Hale Golf Club Archives at Manchester Archives, Tony Timpson Scrapbook 1, Reference G/HGC/2/6/1 https://clubv1clubdocuments.blob.core.windows.net/582/a773e19c-e9cd-4da3-914f-0865f6e07d98 [Accessed 16 Jul 2025].

[12] Manchester Central Library Introduction to Hale Golf Club Archive, https://clubv1clubdocuments.blob.core.windows.net/582/a773e19c-e9cd-4da3-914f-0865f6e07d98 [Accessed 16 Jul 2025].

[13] Neal Hyde, Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003.

[14] The Manchester Courier, 19 Apr 1903, p.11.

[15] Neal Hyde, Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003.

[16] Neal Hyde, Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003, p.123.

[17] Manchester Courier, 19 Apr 1904, p.11.

[18] Description of the course in the Manchester Courier, 16 May 1905, p.11.

[19] Altrincham and Bowdon Guardian, 27 May 1903, p.5.

[20] https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1903?amount=450) [Accessed 3 Jul 2025].

[21] Neal Hyde, Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003.

[22] https://www.tennismajors.com/wimbledon-news 27 June, 1960: The Day Wimbledon starlet Lottie Dod passed away [Accessed 11 Jul 2025].

[23] https://www.manchestervictorianarchitects.org.uk/architects/william-owen.

[24] Trafford Local Studies, PLA/2/HAL/1907/1/431.

[25] Trafford Local Studies PLA/2/HAL/1903/2/123.

[26] Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003, p.31.

[27] Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003, p.31.

[28] Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003, p.59.

[29] Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003, p.62.

[30] Manchester Evening News, 9 Jan 1933, p.7.

[31] Stockport County Express, 16 Sep 1965, p.3.

[32] Manchester Evening News, 14 Jan 1971, p.5.

[33] Manchester Evening News, 20 Jul 1981, p.1.

[34] Manchester Evening News, 27 Jul 1981, p.1.

[35] Neal Hyde, Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003, p.125.

[36] Neal Hyde, Hale Golf Club – A Celebration of the First Century 1903 – 2003, Altrincham, Hale Golf Club, 2003.

[37] Altrincham Messenger, 8 June 2017 https://www.messengernewspapers.co.uk/news/15354921.Hale_Golf_Club_celebrates_a_new_chapter_in_its_history_after___500_000_renovations/?ref=arc [Accessed 25 Jun 2025].