1920s aerials of British Courses 3

[Mark_Rowlinson]

We start off with some more courses in South Wales. I can tell you little about them – I am woefully ignorant of all but a handful of courses in the area.

The extent of my knowledge of Whitchurch is limited to what little I saw from the road driving past once on my way to the BBC in Llandaff.





This is apparently Cardiff about which I confess total ignorance.





Llanishen is another Cardiff course unknown to me. The club dates from 1905.









These are labeled Tredegar. In fact there are two courses with the name Tredegar: Tredegar and Rhymney (1921) and Tredegar Park (1923). Can anyone narrow the field?





Back to England, these are Ashford Manor in 1929, not far from today’s Heathrow Airport. Comparison with Google Earth shows a reduction in the number of bunkers and a considerable increase in the number of trees, although the routing is very similar.







You’ll need to peer at this to find the golf course, but it is a 9-hole course by MacKenzie, Marsden near Huddersfield. The picture was taken to show the reservoir but most of the course is there and it looks pretty similar today.



This is unusual. It is Highgate, a Cuthbert Butchart course in North London where I used to play quite a lot in the 1970s. There were some rather adventurous holes playing over the top of a covered in reservoir. I hadn’t realised that the course was there before the reservoir!



Finally, this says that it is Burnham in 1929. How close does today’s course get to that particular lighthouse?

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Llanishen - are those mowing patterns or rig and furrow?

[Will Lozier]

Looks to be a short course at Tredegar

[Mark Bourgeois]

Llanishen - are those mowing patterns or rig and furrow?

The demarcations between light and dark seem too sharp and too straight to be r&f.

[Mark Pearce]

Llanishen - are those mowing patterns or rig and furrow?

The demarcations between light and dark seem too sharp and too straight to be r&f.

Not at all.  There's an aerial photo of Alwoodley in the clubhouse in which the straightness and sharpness of the rig and furrow pattern is really dramatic.

[Paul_Turner]

I think it's rig and furrow too.  Brancepeth Castle has all kinds in its aerials:  deep and wide (1st) to denser and narrower (most of the course).

[Mark Bourgeois]

Wait, I definitely see it in sections of the 2nd-4th pics; I thought Mark was asking about the 1st pic. That's where I saw / see mowing patterns; they're wider than the r&f.