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Adam Lawrence

  • Karma: +0/-0
Huntercombe's hollows
« on: June 21, 2012, 11:53:22 AM »
Just came across this snippet from Fowler's chapter on heathland courses in Hutchinson's 'Golf Greens and Greenkeeping' from 1906. Rather interesting...

"The Romans, I found, had been there some years ago, and they had designed some excellent bunkers, which I was first of all told by archaeologists were used as stables for their horses, but now higher authorities say that they were camp kitchens ; anyway, they come in capitally informing the best type of hazards. You may see the same deep hollows at Huntercombe, which, no doubt, was also a Roman camp."
Adam Lawrence

Editor, Golf Course Architecture
www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Principal, Oxford Golf Consulting
www.oxfordgolfconsulting.com

Author, 'More Enduring Than Brass: a biography of Harry Colt' (forthcoming).

Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Niall C

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Huntercombe's hollows
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2012, 01:46:03 PM »
Adam,

Clearly they used to drink some strong stuff in those days !

Interesting though that the hollows were pre-existing. I've never seen the course but from threads on here I just kind of assumed that they were created as part of the golf course. From that point of view I suppose the design is more along the lines of the "laid out" school of architecture rather than the "shift the dirt" school.

Niall

Mark_Rowlinson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Huntercombe's hollows
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2012, 02:22:32 PM »
Adam,

Interesting. There are ancient earthworks at Bath and Berkhamsted, and Royal Wimbledon enters a Roman camp. I shall probably wake at 3 am, thinking of another.

An old Roman road crosses Prenton, on the Wirral.

Mark_Rowlinson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Huntercombe's hollows
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2012, 02:31:11 PM »
And isn't there a Roman road at RCP?

Scott Warren

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Huntercombe's hollows
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2012, 05:20:54 PM »
There is, Mark. It flanks the 12th and crosses the 11th fairway about 80 yards shy of the green.