The Berkshire - 80 years later

[Scott Warren]

I just came across this page while perving on The Berkshire:

http://www.theberkshire.co.uk/index.lasso?pg=a05c0ea59d2aa298&cl=1&catid=1346e8ce823b9b65&mp=df0843fcb0589b53

Pretty amazing how much a course can change.

[Andrew Summerell]

You have to wonder if the architect envisaged that many trees.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Mark Pearce plays there every year and hopefully he can tell us more.

AS we move from the heath at Sunningdale - which was pretty open to start with you get Swinley Forrest where we know massive tree clearance took place.  Cross the road and you're at the Berkshire.  I wonder how much it was cleared forrest, because there doesn't seem to be that much heather in the old photos?

So even if wide corridors were cleared to find the holes, I bet Fowler didn't envision the massive tree growth.


I read recently that the environmentalists in the 1970's realised that Heaths were losing their character and diversity was threatened because nothing was controlling the spread of Birch and Pine.  Eventually government agencies took this up and only later did Walton Heath and others take up the challenge of tree management. It's been improving in recent years but there's still away to go.


Thanks Scott.  These were the first Heathland courses I played and I’ve returned and confirmed my feeling that they are underrated than their more famous and older rivals.

[Mark Pearce]

I play in a couple of societies which have meeyings there but don't have any further information.  My understanding, though I can't recall where from, is that there were very few trees when the courses were developed and next to no clearing.  I don't think that's uncommon.  I used to play at a 9 hole course called Chorleywood which was heathland and had no trees at all when developed before the war.  By 1995 it was extremely tightly tree lined.  I think once grazing animals disappear (as they will if you build a golf course) the natural defence against tree growth goes with them.

[Adam Lawrence]

I'm sure Mark is right. The other thing about heather is that it is a very delicate plant, though you'd never believe it if you hit a ball in there. It's very easy to kill it or to allow other, more aggressive species, to out-compete it.

They are planning a bunker renovation project at the moment; the idea is to return the bunkers to a more historic look and feel. Someone said to me last time I was there, in December: 'The only bunkers that look right are the ones that are no longer really in play' (ie they are Fowler's originals, not the ones that have been added more recently).

I'm going to a seminar tomorrow which Chris Lomas, the Berkshire's head greenkeeper, plus a lot of other greenkeepers from the top heathland courses will be attending, so I'll ask him for his thoughts.

[Sean_A]

Unless this land was used for something else previously, judging by the very thick and straight tree lines, I believe some serious tree clearing took place. 

Ciao

[john_stiles]

Putting the Spanish Armada on its heels,  building the Mayflower (thanks), etc.

Ship building, as the sun never set on the British Empire, cost more than a few trees.

Plus warming the stone buildings and cooking the meals !

[John Mayhugh]

I really like seeing comparisons like this. 

In addition to John Stiles's observations, might the original tree clearing at the Berskhire be related to the Fernhill fuel allotment discussed in Swinley Special?  They are pretty close neighbors.

[Mark Chaplin]

Open heathland would have been grazed, as soon as this stopped with the golfers as has been alluded to earlier the firs and birch start to take root.