keep things going, 1928–58 - stoke park › book › chapter11.pdf · 2018-03-17 · slough,...

S T O K E P A R K1 8 6

Switzerland. Recreations: has participated in nearly every British sport.

Address: Creston, Farnham Common, Bucks. Club: Royal Automobile.

On his retirement, the Golf Club Committee, after receiving

a letter from Pa Jackson ‘expressing his indebtedness to the

Committee for the assistance they had always given him’,

resolved:

That the Committee wish cordially to thank Mr Lane-Jackson for his

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

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-

pied by the Stoke Poges Club, which is undoubtedly the finest country

club in the world.

It mentioned all the attractive amenities, towns and villages

nearby – Eton, Windsor Castle, Burnham Beeches, Virginia

Water, Ascot and Hawthorne Hill racecourses, Cliveden,

Maidenhead, Beaconsfield, Marlow, Henley – and the excel-

lent communications: 40 trains a day from Paddington to

Slough, taking 23 to 30 minutes, the Great Western Railway

running motor omnibuses to serve the Estate, one going by

Salt Hill and the other by Stoke Green to Farnham Royal,

and, finally, a motor service between Slough station and the

Stoke Poges Club. It spoke of a ‘remarkably dry and healthy

climate, for it stands high above the Thames Valley and sin-

gularly free from mist and fog. The soil is so light and porous

that little discomfort is felt from the heaviest rains.’

A big change from the 1880s was the availability of houses.

The brochure offered ‘a few houses, already built, for sale on

very reasonable terms, and the Stoke Poges Estate Company

have arranged to build houses to suit purchasers’.

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

Keep Things Going, 1928–58

The Club re-formed

A great entrepreneur and philanthropist

A visit from the Queen

Gray’s Meadow and the Gardens of Remembrance

Tournaments continue

Suspend Rudge forthwith

Gift of 200 acres

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 1 8 9S T O K E P A R K1 8 8

The Club re-formed

In 1928, Mr (later Sir) Noel Mobbs bought the Club from Pa

Jackson, and he re-formed it in 1929.

At the General Meeting of Stoke Poges Golf Club Limited

held on Monday, 3 September 1928 at 201 Great Portland

Street, London W1, Noel Mobbs reported that:

On behalf of Morland Estates Limited he had acquired the whole of the

shares from Mr Jackson and his friends, who had resigned from the

board.

Mobbs further reported that:

Morland Estates Limited had acquired the freehold of the Estate,

together with the freehold of certain cottages on the property.

Mobbs said that Morland Ltd agreed to run a golf club for the

Members of the Stoke Poges Golf Club and generally to carry

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

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.’

Harry Colt had also designed a further nine holes to take

the short course up to eighteen holes. It was opened in 1929

and, though nearly as long as the Old Course, was considered

to be a little easier. Though they were not permitted on the

Old Course, three- and four-ball matches were allocated on

the New. Ladies were also allowed to play on this course at

weekends.

The brochure also noted that the Club played matches

against the Universities and there was also a well-known

Ladies v. Men Match and the Girls’ Championship. In the

1920s, the News of the World Professional Tournament and the

London Amateur Foursomes had also been held at the Club.

Harry Colt had also designed an eighteen-hole putting

course described in the brochure as ‘quite unique’ (language

pedants would not like the qualification of the word ‘unique’,

Noel (later Sir Noel) Mobbs took over running the Club and bought the freehold. ‘Pa’Jackson wrote: ‘I could see from the first that it was his ambition to make Stoke Park thefinest rendezvous for golfers in the neighbourhood of London. He has extended the shortcourse to one of 18 holes, which, like the old course, was laid out by H.S. Colt.’

The clubhouse in 1929, ‘The Upper Portions of which … are being converted into PrivateService Flats ranging from a Bed-Sitting-Room and Bathroom, up to a Hall, two Sitting-Rooms, two Double Bedrooms, four single Bedrooms and two Bathrooms. These suites willbe self-contained with their own front door.’

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 1 9 1

the motor car industry, which was growing rapidly in the early

years of the 20th century. Born in 1878, Noel Mobbs, with

his brother Herbert, had formed the Pytchley Autocar

Company to sell private cars in 1903. He also formed the

Pytchley Hire Purchase Company, the first of its kind to offer

easy payment terms for the purchase of motor cars. It became

the United Motor Finance Corporation and was absorbed

into Mercantile Credit in the 1950s. Mobbs also ran the

Anglo-Saxon Insurance Company.

Mobbs’s automobile business was based in Northampton

and it also owned garages in Market Harborough and

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

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

accommodate some of the thousands of motorised army vehi-

cles that had been shipped to the war zone in France. In July

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

in need of repair. The War Office looked for a suitable site

and discovered what they thought was one at Chippenham,

near Slough, a Buckinghamshire town with about 15,000

inhabitants.

Slough was best known as the place where Sir William

Herschel, royal astronomer to King George III, ‘looked fur-

ther into space than ever human being did before me’. It was

also known as the birthplace of Elliman’s Embrocation, a


maintaining that something is either unique or it is not), and

‘a lasting testimony to the skill of its designer’.

The course was no less than 600 yards in length, and

though, as the brochure pointed out, every hole could be

done in one, the Bogey (the word used in those days in the

UK for par) was 49. At that point the record round was 40.

The green fee for the first round was one shilling (about

£2.75 in today’s money) and six pence (£1.37) for any addi-

tional rounds.

There was also a practice ground and the offer of lessons

from the professional.

As well as golf there was also a Stoke Poges Tennis Club

boasting eight grass courts and two hard courts, with a tennis

pavilion where members could change and where tea could be

taken. Members of the Tennis Club also enjoyed the freedom

of the main clubhouse and the gardens.

A great entrepreneur and philanthropist

Who were the Mobbs family that had bought the estate?

Arthur Noel Mobbs was an entrepreneur who had recog-

nised the potential for developing businesses associated with

Tennis was clearly going to be an important activity at the Club. There were eight grasscourts and two hard courts, with a tennis pavilion where men and ladies could change andwhere they could have tea. Members of the Tennis Club could also use the facilities of theclubhouse and the gardens.

An eighteen-hole putting course was built by the lake. It was designed by Harry Colt andopened in 1930. Rather expectantly, the Club Brochure wrote: ‘The course is about 600yards in length, and, although every hole can be done in one, the Bogey (NB not Par!) is 49.’


blend of vinegar, turpentine and egg white sold throughout

the world to cure both humans and horses! In the 15th cen-

tury Slough Kiln supplied bricks for the construction of Eton

College. Slough’s other claim to fame was its place as a signif-

icant staging post on the London-to-Bath road. By the 17th

century there were many coaching inns coping with the 80

coaches a day passing through. In the 18th century Slough

had also created a number of nurseries producing Cox’s

Orange Pippin apples and Mrs Simkins’ Pinks.

None of these was of much interest to the War Office.

What they liked was its location less than an hour’s drive from

central London and the fact that the 668 acres of

Chippenham Court Farm was close to both the Great West

Road and the Great Western Railway. The depot was started

but suffered delays, and by early 1919 questions were being

asked about the so-called scandal of Slough depot in both

Houses of Parliament. Winston Churchill of the War Office

faced angry questions. By this time 3,400 men were working

up to 48 hours a week to complete the depot.

The man put in charge of the depot by the government was

Sam Wallace, an experienced engineer who had made himself

rich running the General Electric Company in the USA. He

had come to England to act as joint manager of Associated

Equipment Company (AEC). At the end of 1919 he was sec-

onded to running the Slough depot and quickly came to the

conclusion that its salvation would be conversion to a pri-

vately-, as opposed to government-, run business. He pro-

ceeded to try to put together a consortium to make a bid for

the depot.

The first person he approached was Sir Percival Perry, who

had worked for Henry Ford before the war, for the govern-

ment during the war (for which he was knighted) and for

himself after the war. He set up a company called Motor

Organisations to buy and sell the entire surplus stock of US

Expeditionary Force motor transport left in Germany. He

involved Noel Mobbs in this operation, who had made his

own contribution to the war effort as Assistant Director of

Food Production in the Ministry of Agriculture, where he was

responsible for the efficient operation of 30,000 tractors

imported from the USA. He was awarded an OBE in 1918.

In February 1920 Perry and Mobbs made a joint bid for

the depot. It was a colossal deal. The price paid was £7 mil-

lion (£385m in today’s money) and for that the Slough

Trading Company, as the purchasing company was called,

received 1.8 million square feet of covered space, the largest

industrial complex under one roof in Britain, and more than

17,000 vehicles. Motor News wrote: ‘It will be something of a

miracle if they succeed in converting Slough into a money

earning concern.’

The first task was to sell the vehicles, but Mobbs could also

see potential in the land they had acquired. In July 1920 the

company was approached by a local business to lease an acre

site on which it could build a factory. Slough Trading

Company decided it would lease selected sections of its land

for 999 years at an annual ground rent of £75 (£4,125

Right: Cartoons from an article in The Bystander in August 1932.

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 1 9 5

Britain. He talked to two businessmen already successful in

the food business in the UK. Philip Wrigley, who had been

manufacturing chewing gum in Wembley for five years, told

him that ‘The English eat a lot of milk chocolate’, and James

Horlick, who had been making the eponymous drink for 24

years, advised him to go and talk to Noel Mobbs.

Mobbs welcomed him, showing him a large shed in Dorset

Avenue in Slough, and although the roof was leaking, Mars

signed a lease. The two men became friends and Mars was

invited to stay at Stoke Park.

As we have seen, in 1928, Mobbs bought the Stoke Park

Club from Nick ‘Pa’ Jackson. He paid £30,000 (£1.65 mil-

lion in today’s money) and moved with his family into the

house, setting himself up with an office there. He soon faced

a threat to the rural setting of Stoke Park by Slough’s Urban

District Council wanting to extend their boundaries into the

parishes of Farnham Royal, Burnham, Stoke Poges and

Langley Marsh. All the councils agreed and Greater Slough

grew overnight from 1,660 acres to 6,082 acres. According to

the Estates Gazette:

Within a mile radius of the trading estate there is enough land to accom-

modate 100,000 people and, if the town is enlarged to that extent, the

necessity for wise town planning is a matter of extreme importance.

Since it appears to be certain that the town will be developed as an

industrial centre the problem of town planning assumes, to many people,

an appalling nightmare. In all probability, this depressing outlook is due

to visualising Slough as a second Black Country. We feel confident, how-

ever, that the well-balanced commonsense shown in the construction of

the Slough factories will also show in the development of the housing

schemes which will be designed to accommodate the workers in those fac-

tories. In any event, we do not fear another bout of industrial hooligan-

ism such as we had in the last century.

Even the New York Herald was expressing concern that the

spread of commerce in the area was such that nearby Stoke

Poges church, immortalised in Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy’, was ‘in

danger of being imprisoned by new buildings’.

Noel Mobbs reacted in two ways to protect the surround-

ing countryside. He helped found the Penn-Gray Society

which bought and preserved fields around Stoke Poges

church, and he financed the purchase of land and the cre-

ation of the Stoke Poges Gardens of Remembrance, which

were opened in 1934 and later extended to cover a 40-acre

site alongside the churchyard.

Furthermore, Mobbs’s sense of social responsibility led

him to help with the creation of sporting and social facilities

for the growing population of Slough.

He laid out his philosophy:

Slough is developing as a modern town upon modern lines and it should

be run upon modern lines as far as the healthy education and content-

ment of its inhabitants are concerned. Happy lives, social evenings, keen

sport and good health in our employees are of as much practical impor-

tance to us individually as manufacturers as they are to the spirit of com-

radeship which seems to pervade the British Empire more than any other

country in the world … Crime is much reduced and the temptation to slip

into evil habits among the young is both checked by precept and avoided

by lack of idle time.

By building clubs and societies for games, lectures and enter-

tainment, Mobbs hoped to ‘set an example which may well be


today). The proposed per square foot rental was 3d (70p

today). Clearly the other directors expected Mobbs to make

the business hum. What sort of man was he?

He was very tall and commanded respect. He did not suf-

fer fools gladly. Already in his forties when he became

Chairman of Slough Trading Company, as well as business

acumen he had also developed a strong sense of social

responsibility. He was a keen all-round sportsman, with a

golf handicap of five, and had won several tennis tourna-

ments and been captain of a curling team. His real passion

was bridge, and he would later be elected Chairman of the

card committee at the Portland Club, the world’s leading

authority on bridge. He would help write new rules for the

game. He was also elected President and Chairman of the

executive committee of the European Bridge League.

Mobbs and his wife, Frances, felt they should move from

Northampton to be closer to Slough. Initially he bought a

large house at Gorse Hill, Woking, conveniently next to

the golf club. Unfortunately they refused him immediate

membership! Marcus Colby, who went to Oxford University

with Richard, one of Mobbs’s sons, said that Noel Mobbs

was a man

… with a big personality and an impressive intellect. In business he could

be pretty hard-nosed. He gave the impression of being able to see through

walls. Away from business, he was a hell of a big spender. There were

extraordinary parties, the sort people talked about and tried to get invi-

ted to. There was a lot of bridge and a great deal of betting on just about

every sporting event you could imagine.

Mobbs battled away to make sure the Slough Trading

Company succeeded, and on 7 August 1925 Royal Assent was

given, allowing the company to press on with the strategy of

converting and building factories for letting. A huge acreage

of land was ready to be fully exploited. In March 1926 Slough

Trading Company became Slough Estates Ltd, and by

Christmas 1927 the estate had no fewer than 65 companies

operating from its property, including Black and Decker,

with their revolutionary new power drills, and Nicholas

Products, who used the as and pro to give the brand name

ASPRO to their headache pills.

In the early 1930s, in spite of the worldwide depression,

Slough Estates pulled off a coup in persuading the American

company, Mars, to take space. The 28-year-old Forrest Mars,

wanting to prove himself away from his father, had come to

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 1 9 7

‘He has also, for the same reason, planted hundreds of trees at every

point where there is any possibility of the property being overlooked.

‘There is not, and cannot be, any apprehension on the part of present

or future members that the amenities of the club are in any way threat-

ened.

‘It should be noted, also, that Captain A.C. Snow is not now secretary

of the club.’

A visit from the Queen

In 1929 Queen Mary, wife of King George V, was driven

from nearby Windsor Castle to visit the Penn-Gray Museum.

This was how The Times reported the visit:

THE QUEEN AT STOKE POGES CHURCH

VISIT TO THE PENN-GRAY MUSEUM

The Queen accompanied by two ladies and an equerry, motored from

Windsor Castle on Tuesday afternoon and paid an informal visit to Stoke

Poges Church, which has been immortalised by the poet Gray. No one

knew Her Majesty was coming and there was hardly anyone about when

she arrived. The vicar, Rev. Mervyn Clare, is away in Ireland, the curate

(Rev. A.W. Heriot-Howis) had just left the church and the only official

on duty was the deputy verger, Mr Richard Hawes. It was Her Majesty’s

first visit to the church and she had a good look round, but did not sign

the visitors’ book.

From the church the Queen walked to the Penn-Gray Society Museum,

which is delightfully situated in close proximity. Here there was not a sin-

gle visitor, and Her Majesty was received by the custodian, Mr Arthur J.

Graylen. The museum has not been opened very long, but already it con-

tains a wonderful collection of Penn and Gray relics.

Her Majesty was immensely interested and spent nearly half-an-hour

in the building. She was particularly interested in a first edition of six

poems by Thomas Gray, which was published in 1753, and was the prop-

erty of the Duke of Portland. It contains a wonderful drawing of the old

Manor House as it stood before the greater portion of it was destroyed by

fire in the 18th century. It is the remaining portion which the Penn-Gray

Society are trying to acquire as a national asset.

Another little book which interested the Queen was the diary of

Thomas Gray during his tour of France and Italy, with Horace Walpole in

1739–40. The writing is very small, but perfectly legible. In the same case

is a piece of the aged thorn to which Gray refers in his ‘Elegy’:

Grav’d on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.

This has been preserved over 100 years, and was presented to the Museum

only last week by Miss H. Harvey.

Over the fireplace in the same room is an exquisite piece of marble

plaque by John Deare. It came from Stoke Park (now the Stoke Poges Golf

Club), which was built by John Penn, and was lent by the present owner,

Mr Noel Mobbs. The Queen questioned the custodian about this unique

piece of work, and before he could reply she had placed her own inter-

pretation on it and remarked: ‘It is the dream of life.’

A painting of Gray by Benjamin Wilson caught the Queen’s eye,

because in the background can be plainly seen the old tower of Upton

Church, with the Round Tower of Windsor Castle in the background. Two

Quaker prayer seats which belonged to John Penn, which were formerly in

Stoke Poges Church, also came in for special observation.

The Queen congratulated the custodian on the wonderful museum and

the beautiful way in which the place is kept. Her Majesty afterwards walked


followed in other parts of England’.

Some people were concerned in case the entrepreneur

Mobbs decided to cash in on the building boom. However,

the Sunday Despatch wrote on 30 March 1930, under the head-

ing ‘Amenities of the Club in no way threatened’:

Writing in reference to our story last week on building developments near

Stoke Poges Golf Club, the secretary (Mr C.K. Cotton) states:

‘When Mr A. Noel Mobbs acquired the property two years ago he gave

the members every assurance that he had no intention of disposing of any

portion of the golf course or park for building.

‘Since then Mr Mobbs has acquired additional land and opened a

second 18-hole course.

‘Within the last few weeks Mr Mobbs has purchased a further strip

of land on the western side of the course, so as to ensure that future

building operations outside his property cannot interfere with the

privacy of members.

Putting on the 13th in the 1930s. According to Pevsner, the mound is ‘probably a Bronze Age barrow, as suggested by the discovery in 1911 of a “cinerary urn” in making the bunker’.

into the old world garden in which the museum stands, and when she saw

it she remarked, ‘What a charming old world spot.’ In the distance could

be seen Penn’s house, about which the Queen asked many questions, and

also about the piece of land adjoining the Manor House, which the

Society hope to acquire for the nation.

There were no motor cars on the adjoining roadway to disturb the har-

mony and beauty of the surroundings, as the Queen stood in the garden.

Before leaving, Her Majesty shook hands with Mr Graylen, and wished

him every success. The Queen then motored back to Windsor Castle.

Gray’s Meadow and the Gardens of Remembrance

Two of the most important developments of the 1920s were,

in a sense, an ‘anti-development’ move in that the further

encroachment of houses onto the land around Stoke Park was

curtailed by the purchase of Gray’s Meadow and the con-

struction of the Gardens of Remembrance.

Now that planning legislation prevents unrestricted devel-

opment, it is often forgotten that such legislation came into

force only after the Second World War and that, before that,

builders could build whatever and wherever they liked. The

meadow next to St Giles’ church was under threat from devel-

opers, and in the early 1930s two appeals were instituted to

raise £6,000 (about £330,000 in today’s money) to buy the

land and to repair the church tower. A committee was formed

and their eminent friends and contacts were asked to write to

the Daily Telegraph. This campaign was successful, with well-

known authors such as G.K. Chesterton, John Buchan,

Anthony Hope-Hawkins, A.E.W. Mason, and the biographer

of Gray himself, Edmund Gosse, writing on behalf of the

appeal. The money was raised, and on 5 May 1925 the deeds

of the meadow were handed over to the National Trust. The

Slough Observer wrote:

It is this beautiful meadow that has been secured. First, the nearest three

acres of it, with the Penn Memorial, were bought and presented by the

late Sir Bernard Oppenheimer and Mr W.A. Judd. That, temporarily,

held the breach. On the death of Sir Bernard Oppenheimer, the remain-

ing ten acres came into the market. Canon Barnett and Mr Judd bought

this portion for £2,000 [about £110,000 today]. They might have sold it

since for £4,000 or £5,000. Instead they have held it – without charge

or interest – until the money could be raised. To the new Parochial

Church council was given the opportunity of carrying through the appeal,

always with the devoted help and initiative of the vicar, and it is on behalf

of that council that the deeds are to be handed over.


Right: Ladies v. Men 1934. The men, conceding nine strokes per round, were beaten by fifteen matches to five with one halved.

Here are, left to right, Miss Jean Hamilton, Mr E. Martin-Smith, Miss Molly Gourlayand Mr R.H. Oppenheimer.

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 2 0 1

on the lawn going down to the lake from the Gardens, was

originally in the west garden next to the Mansion. In 1996

the Gardens were placed on the English Heritage Register of

Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest, and became

Grade II listed.

Tournaments continue

Golf tournaments were continued during the 1930s after the

new Club had been constituted. In 1928 the British

Professional Match-Play Championship (first played in

1903), sponsored by the News of the World, had been played at

the Stoke Park Club. After four days of golf, the final was

contested between the experienced Charlie Whitcombe and

the brilliant up-and-coming star, Henry Cotton. The final

was over 36 holes, and at lunch, after eighteen holes,

Whitcombe was four up. However, Cotton birdied the first

five holes to put the match at all-square. Whitcombe fought

back, got down in two at the seventh, and then covered the

next nine holes in just 29 shots to win four and two.

This was an infrequent defeat for Cotton, who was

probably Britain’s greatest-ever player. This is what Ted

Barrett wrote about him:

There was never a greater individualist than Henry Cotton. He was not

the most approachable of men, yet he did much to raise the reputation of

his profession. He could scarcely have resembled Walter Hagen less, yet

like the great American he would brook no hint of an insult to the

dignity of the golf professional.

Hagen felt insulted when he was refused clubhouse facilities in Britain,

and did much to end such discrimination. Cotton had the stature to make

it a condition of his being attached to the Ashridge club in Hertfordshire,

as it had been at Waterloo in Belgium, that he should have honorary

membership. This is now widely accepted practice.

He was a public schoolboy who liked to consort with the rich and cele-

brated, and was at ease when he did so. It has been said – no doubt by the

envious – that among his fellow pros he spoke only to champions.

Nevertheless, at well past three score years and ten, he could be the life

and soul of the pro-am party.

He was, understandably for a triple Open championship winner, an

expensive golf teacher, yet freely gave a great deal of his time to the cause

of the Golf Foundation, which he helped to establish in 1952. The

Foundation began with coaching at six schools, and now organises coach-

ing at more than 2,000 schools and junior groups. How much this ini-

tiative is responsible for the general raising of professional and amateur

standards in Britain can scarcely by quantified, but cannot be discounted

– nor can Cotton’s leading role in the enterprise.

His other notable contribution to the cause of encouraging young

players was the institution in 1960 of the Rookie of the Year title, which

goes annually to the best newcomer on the tour. His part in helping the

1938 Walker Cup team to gain their first success against the United States

is another example of his inspirational effect on British golf. His most

outstanding service to the nation’s game was breaking the American grip

on the British Open in 1934, not to mention the majestic way in which he

did it, setting up a 36-hole record of 132, not equalled for 56 years until

Nick Faldo beat it with 130 in 1992. Cotton held a far more dominating

position in English – and European golf – than anyone who followed.


It was Sir Noel Mobbs who realised the danger of housing

development on land nearby and adjacent to Stoke Park, and

he bought it to protect both the church and the estate. He

organised the construction of the Gardens of Remembrance,

an oasis of peace and tranquillity, under the direction of the

well-known landscape architect, Edward White.

Individual gardens and plots were made available for pri-

vate interment of cremated remains, and the Gardens as a

whole were dedicated by the Bishop of Buckingham on 25

May 1935. In 1971 ownership was transferred to the District

Council by a Private Act of Parliament which required that

the Gardens be maintained to the same high standards that

had been applied from their creation to their transfer.

The Gardens stretch over 20 acres and include over 2,000

individual gardens made up of many different types, incor-

porating rose, heath, parterre, colonnade, rock and water,

formal and informal. The main avenue leads down to a

colonnade and features columns, water channels, magnolia

trees and flower beds full of colour. The Gardens also

include many wonderful trees, some hundreds of years old.

One of the individual gardens, consecrated in 1949, is a

memorial to all ranks of the Gurkha Regiment who gave their

lives in service to the British Empire between 1857 and 1947.

In June every year since 1949, a service has been held by the

Gurkhas to honour their past members.

The headquarters of the Penn-Gray Society used to be

Church Cottage, near the entrance to the Gardens, but this

cottage is now the administrative centre of the Gardens. The

urn to the memory of Lady Juliana Penn, which now stands

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 2 0 3

Left: Stoke Park Club from the air in 1935, including the Colt-designed putting course which waslost when flood defence works werecarried out in the early 1960s.

Right: A cigarette card in 1934showing Stoke Park’s famous 7thhole.


Long before he won the Open, and Cotton did not hide the fact that

he proposed to do so, he had made himself known to a wide public, for

here was no ordinary golf professional, but a self-possessed, stylishly

dressed, articulate member of the upper middle class who intended to

make a glittering career from the game.

When he at last won the Open at Royal St George’s after several high

finishes, his second round of 65 gave the Dunlop company the long-

running idea for a new golf ball, and any reader who has yet to see one has

only to go out and take a good look in the rough of his or her nearest

course to find one. It is unlikely that many belonging to Cotton could

ever have found their way there, for his greatest asset was long, straight

driving.

He is one of the few professionals who never tried to plan their way

round a course with fade or draw as their chief means of control. His

endless practice gave him the means to attempt this daunting tactic, and

he succeeded at many important moments in his career – though not in

the last round of his Sandwich triumph, when he put up the same sad

closing score as in 1933 – but this time, thanks to his meteoric start, it was

good enough to give him a five-shot win.

One of the long-remembered events of the 1930s was the feat

of Captain R.F.H. Norman, a member of the Portland Club

in St James’s Square and a First World War veteran who was

somewhat lame with a metal plate in his leg, who played ten

rounds of non-stop golf at Stoke Park to win a bet that he

could complete this feat in fewer than 1,000 strokes. He

achieved it with 40 strokes in hand.

It meant that he walked no less than 45 miles in sixteen-

and-a-half hours. His handicap was 18, and though he did

not play to it in most of the rounds, he was remarkably steady.

Indeed, his last round was almost his best. The rounds were:

100, 98, 94, 89, 94, 102, 97, 89, 107 and 90. His only sus-

tenance during the day was four lemons and glasses of water.Captain Norman and his wife. Although lame from a First World War wound, CaptainNorman completed ten rounds in a day in fewer than 1,000 strokes to win a bet. Diana Fishwick putting on the 18th green with the clubhouse in the background at a time when the lobster pots were in use.


A post-dated cheque from a member of Stoke Park Club? Never!

A caddy playing with a lady member at another club and claiming to be a member of Stoke Park Club! Suspend him forthwith. (The irony was that Rudge was the caddy for CaptainNorman when he completed his ten rounds in a day.)

His caddie was Rudge, who carried his bag in every round.

(Rudge may have been a hero too on this day, but, as we shall

see, he blotted his copy-book later.)

Norman achieved some publicity for the Club with his

feat. The Daily Express ran a story and included a photograph of

him, and the Daily Mail wrote quite a long piece, concluding:

Mrs Norman accompanied her husband on the last few rounds and all the

members gave Captain Norman the way through, stopping their own

games temporarily.

At the end of this extraordinary feat he walked back to the clubhouse

and immediately went to sleep in one of the rooms, but later he walked

across to Stoke Court, a residential club, where he is spending the night.

The Professional Match Play Championship returned in

1937. This time Percy Alliss (father of the BBC golf com-

mentator, Peter Alliss) and Jimmy Adams met in the final.

Alliss won three and two.

Suspend Rudge forthwith

The Club was run strictly by the Committee, as is made

clear by these minutes from Committee meetings during

the 1930s:

Post-dated Cheque. A member having given a post-dated cheque, the

Secretary was instructed that unless said cheque is met on presentation,

this member shall be notified that his membership ceases forthwith.

Dogs seemed to be a perennial problem:

A letter was read by the Secretary from Mr A.N. Mobbs regarding the nui-

sance repeatedly caused by a dog belonging to Mr Koch de Gooreynd,

running loose near the 11th hole, New Course and disturbing the players.

The Secretary reported that Mr Koch de Gooreynd had informed him

that the dog is always shut up in a kennel at week-ends, but had found a

means of escape. This exit has now been blocked up and further escape

prevented. Mr Koch de Gooreynd tendered his apologies for the distur-

bance caused.

Mrs Hyman’s dogs. The Sec’ was instructed to write to Mrs Hyman and

inform her that the Committee would not permit her frequent breakage

of the rules concerning dogs at liberty on the course. And unless she give

a written undertaking not to bring her dogs on the Club premises at all,

the matter would be brought before the Committee at their next meeting

to be dealt with.

As for caddies giving lessons:

The point of Caddies being engaged to give lessons to certain members

was raised by Mr Alexander and the Secretary was instructed to inform

such members that this practice is deprecated by the Committee.

Giving lessons was one thing. Playing at a nearby club with

one of the lady members was another.

Rudge. It was reported that a letter had been received from the

Maidenhead Golf Club complaining that one of the Stoke Poges Caddies,

F. Rudge, had played there with a lady member of Stoke Poges, represent-

ing himself as a member of Stoke Poges Club. The Secretary was instruc-

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 2 0 9

ted to suspend Rudge forthwith and to report this matter to the Ladies’

Committee and ask it to request an explanation from the lady concerned.

Caddies seemed to cause considerable angst, and the subject

of tipping them prompted a substantial article in the Daily

Telegraph in 1933 under the heading:

TIPPING-THE-CADDIE HUBBUB

Officials of golf clubs around London were astonished to learn today that

the Stoke Poges Golf Club had decided to set a rigid limit on tips to cad-

dies there.

Stoke Poges had issued the following notice:

CHARGES FOR CADDIES

(which include lunch money, cleaning of clubs and delivery to car or

club-house):

Fees for Round: 1st-class caddies, 2s per round and 2d booking fee;

2nd-class caddies, 1s 4d per round and 2d booking fee.

Tips to Caddies: The usual tips are 1st-class caddie, 1s 6d per

round; 2nd-class caddie, 1s per round.

Players are particularly requested in no circumstances to give more

than another 6d per round.

After talking to officials of many clubs I have failed to support Stoke

Poges. The view almost unanimously is this:

Caddies earn little enough at present. They get tips on a recognised

scale from regular members and occasionally ‘fancy’ sums from wealthy

visitors. The feeling has often arisen that these ‘super tips’ tend to spoil

the caddie, but previous attempts to limit the tip have failed and are cer-

tain to do so again.

Usually a caddie gets a shilling lunch money and probably a similar


A montage of the Ladies v. Men match of 1936 showingsome big names – A.D. ‘Bobby’ Locke (to be OpenChampion in the 1950s), Leonard Crawley, EustaceStorey, Enid Wilson and Pam Barton.

Leonard Crawley. A brilliant all-round sportsman, he made 97 international golf appear-ances and became the respected golf correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. (As it happens, Iplayed against his son, Eustace, the day after Kennedy was assassinated. I’m ashamed to sayI don’t think either of us mentioned it.)


During the Second World War some holes were turned into farmland. Golfers were forbidden to walk on the seeded areas to recover balls. At harvest time there was keen competition to find lost balls as, like all other ‘non-essential’ items, golf balls became scarce during the war.

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 2 1 3

sum, or slightly more, at the end of the day. The charge per round is fixed

by the committee and is paid to the caddie master. The matter of tips is

left to the player’s good sense.

‘Leave it to the Player’

Some clubs like Addington, where the caddies have to travel several miles

to the course, charge 2s 6d per round. The members there usually give a

two-shilling tip per round.

Here are some opinions about the Stoke Poges rule:

Mr G.J. Hawker, secretary of Walton Heath: We do not limit tips. Each

member is the best judge of how to spend his own money. But I do know

that tips are not so big now as they have been.

Mr Peter Wood, the Coombe Hill secretary: The usual luncheon money

tip is one shilling. After the day’s golf the amount the member cares to tip

is a matter for himself. No club committee can dictate to its members on

this question.

Mr G. Stagg, the Addington secretary: If there were no caddies here,

members would not play. Tipping is a matter for the individual. If a

caddie gets ten shillings – well, good luck to him. To the member who

paid him that amount the caddie must have been worth it.

During the Second World War, nine holes were requisitioned

by the government and turned into farmland. All the holes to

the south of the lake were farmed, as was, where possible,

space between fairways of the remaining 36 holes.

Responsibility for farming this land was undertaken by Sir

Noel Mobbs’s son-in-law. During the growing season,

golfers were forbidden to walk across seeded areas to recover

their golf balls. By harvest time there was keen competition to

find the golf balls which, like many other non-essential

items, had become scarce during the war.

The long and level fairways were perceived to be possible

landing places for German aircraft, and to prevent this,

sections of railway line were erected vertically on these

fairways. At the end of the war, the lost nine holes were not

rebuilt, and it was only in 1998 that the Club managed to

restore them.

However, some things did not change during the war. The

Committee were still concerned about dogs, and at their

meeting on 19 August 1945 they passed this resolution:

Dogs. It was resolved that after giving due notice to members by Circular

letter no member would be allowed to take a dog round when playing,

whether on the leash or not, and that members would not be allowed to

exercise their dogs upon the Course between the hours of 9.30am and

5pm. Any member bringing a dog up to the Club in a car must leave the

dog in the car while he plays.

In 1957, when the Mobbs business, United Motor Finance

Corporation, was amalgamated with Mercantile Credit, Stoke

Park and the Club were both offered to Mercantile Credit.

Sir Noel had retired and his sons were heavily engaged in

other activities. However, Mercantile Credit did not want to

divert finance and management time into running a golf

club, and both were sold to the Eton Rural District Council

for £56,000 (about £1.2 million in today’s money). Because

of land sales and facility reduction, the Pa Lane Jackson

vision of the grand country club had been reduced to an


After the war the dog problem did not go away.

T H E F I R S T 1 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S 2 1 5

There was, however, one major drawback to this generous

plan. Dividing the historic estate also put Repton’s landscape

at serious risk, as it now relied on several landowners to

maintain what had been under one management for cen-

turies. This was to have serious consequences over the next

twenty years.


eighteen-hole golf club with half of the Mansion for its club-

house. The sale price reflected this smaller vision, and the

Club lost the ability to generate enough revenue to conserve

the estate on its own.

An advertisement in Country Life in December 1957 (see

right) shows that Mercantile Credit offered the Club to the

open market before selling it to the Council.

Gift of 200 acres

Sir Noel Mobbs, having sold Stoke Park Club to the District

Council two years earlier, died in Bournemouth in 1959. He

had set up the Mobbs Memorial Trust in 1956 and, after his

death, this was run by his three sons, Richard, Eric and

Gerald. In January 1970, Richard died and Eric and Gerald

decided to give 200 acres of land to Eton Rural Council.

The properties offered were: the Manor House, occupied

until shortly beforehand by the London Diocesan Fund as a

conference house, and the 26 acres around the house; the

Memorial Gardens, about 45 acres, with Church Cottage and

ten service cottages, and £100,000 (about £1.5 million

today) to set up a maintenance fund; 100 acres of land

around the Tithe Farm, bounded by Park Road and West End

Lane, to be used as a municipal golf course; 61 acres of play-

ing fields at Farnham Park, including a central pavilion and

three service cottages and a sum of not less than £15,000

(£225,000).

Eric Mobbs, Chairman of ML Engineering Ltd, told the

Slough Observer:

There are now only two of us left and we realise we’re getting old. Gerald

has been ill recently and is not able to do as much as he used to, and I’m

getting near 65. And so we have to look to the future. We won’t be around

for ever but the local council will go on and on. And so we have decided

to offer all the land to them with the only conditions being that they use

it wisely and maintain it well. For instance there has been talk for some

while of having a municipal golf course.

The areas to be given included the Memorial Gardens, and

when asked by the Observer whether he thought some of those

who had bought plots might be upset, Eric Mobbs said: ‘I

can’t see why they should. The gardens will no doubt stay the

same. It will be a moral and legal obligation.’

The Slough Express was full of praise for the Mobbs’s gen-

erosity, writing on 14 August 1970:

Everyone knows that land and property are just about the best investments

going in these tax-bound days. Consequently, there could never really be

any question of Eton Rural District Council rejecting the munificent ges-

ture of the Mobbs family in offering to give the authority 200 acres of

Green Belt land … The land involved will be there to be enjoyed by the

whole population, and posterity, as the pressure for building land grows

and grows, will have reason to be grateful to the family of the man who,

perhaps more than anyone else, laid the foundation for Slough’s unique

prosperity and who himself was no mean benefactor – Sir Noel Mobbs.

By 1957, Sir Noel Mobbs had retired and wanted to move to Bournemouth. MercantileCredit, which had bought Mobbs’s business, offered the Club for sale before eventually sell-ing it to Eton Rural District Council.

keep things going, 1928–58 - stoke park › book › chapter11.pdf · 2018-03-17 · slough,...

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