Major Hutchison

[Tom_Doak]

I don't know much at all about Major C.K. Hutchison.  And I've not got Ron Whitten's book handy at the moment, so I'll just launch a thread here.

When I saw Ran the other day, he suggested I do a list of the best architects for each region / volume of The Confidential Guide.  After all of the usual suspects in the UK, the name that popped up most often was that of Hutchison.  He partnered with S.V. Hotchkin at Woodhall Spa, though Hotchkin receives most of the credit there.  His name shows up again in the credits for Brancaster, one of my favorite links, though Horace Hutchinson got it started.  Hutchison and Guy Campbell did West Sussex. which is one of the very best heathland courses.  The same team built Ashridge, which I thought to be one of the best parkland courses in England when I played there thirty years ago.  And Hutchison is the designer of record at Kington, where I played with Sean Arble last month, up in the high downs west of Birmingham.

So that's five projects I've seen with his name attached in some form, covering the four major types of terrain for golf in the UK, and each of them an exemplary piece of work.  Why don't we hear any more about him?  And what else did he build?

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom
Cornish and Whitten have Hutchison down for new courses at Ashridge, Leeds Castle, Kington, Shoreham, Warsash, West Sussex and Gleneagles (Kings and Queens), all in combination with others mainly Campbell and Hotchkin with the exception being Braid at Gleneagles as you said.

Some extensive remodelling list as well including Ganton, Prines, Royal West Norfolk, Sundridge Park, Tadmarten Heath, Woodhall Spa, North Berwick, Pitlochry and Turnberry, although what exactly he might have dome on these courses is not mentioned.

Tm MacWood wrote a nice article on Hutchison, Campbell and Hotchkin for our SAGCA Golf Architecture magazine some years back now, and I can email that to you.

cheers Neil

[Ally Mcintosh]

I know Guy Campbell did the original Mahony's Point course at Killarney (the one that was divided in two thus compromising both) but I have no reason to believe Hutchison was with him...

And here's an interesting article on the three of them (especially West Sussex) by Jonathan Gaunt:

http://www.eigca.org/Article/EIGCA17276.ink

[Tom_Doak]

Tom
Cornish and Whitten have Hutchison down for new courses at Ashridge, Leeds Castle, Kington, Shoreham, Warsash, West Sussex and Gleneagles (Kings and Queens), all in combination with others mainly Campbell and Hotchkin with the exception being Braid at Gleneagles as you said.

Some extensive remodelling list as well including Ganton, Prines, Royal West Norfolk, Sundridge Park, Tadmarten Heath, Woodhall Spa, North Berwick, Pitlochry and Turnberry, although what exactly he might have dome on these courses is not mentioned.

Tm MacWood wrote a nice article on Hutchison, Campbell and Hotchkin for our SAGCA Golf Architecture magazine some years back now, and I can email that to you.

Neil:

I would love to see the Tom MacWood piece.

The resume you quote is pretty strong for someone that almost never gets a mention as a great designer.  Of course, Hutchison never wrote a book to promote himself. 

[Neil_Crafter]

Tom, I've emailed the article to you.
Hutchison was far more low key than most of his contempories I think. He was also once engaged to Joyce Wethered I believe but the marriage never went ahead. He was a decent golfer too.  

[Ally Mcintosh]

At Turnberry, he did the major renovation post first world war after it was flattened... I read in one contemporary piece that it was a great success.... Of course, it got flattened again during the second world war and MacKenzie Ross was called in to do same...

Neil - would love to see that article also if you can stretch to sending it on...

Thanks,
Ally

[Niall C]

Neil

I'm pretty sure that Hutchison did indeed marry Joyce Wethered.

Tom

Hutchisons role at Gleneagles was as Director of Golf or some such title. He was actually on the patroll of the company. I seem to recall that Tommy Mac reckoned that Hutch shared Braids design fee with him but I never saw any evidence of that in the Goleneagles papers in the NLS. If I've got the right Hutch he also served in the war, got captured and interned in a POW camp where he made a small golf course and later wrote about it in Country Life.

I'll dig it out and send it on.

Niall

[Rich Goodale]

Neil

I'm pretty sure that Hutchison did indeed marry Joyce Wethered.

Tom

Hutchisons role at Gleneagles was as Director of Golf or some such title. He was actually on the patroll of the company. I seem to recall that Tommy Mac reckoned that Hutch shared Braids design fee with him but I never saw any evidence of that in the Goleneagles papers in the NLS. If I've got the right Hutch he also served in the war, got captured and interned in a POW camp where he made a small golf course and later wrote about it in Country Life.

I'll dig it out and send it on.

Niall

Since Joyce Wethered's married name from 1924 until her death was Lady Heathcote-Amory I doubt she married Horace, unless she was a bigamist.

Tom

Vis a vis North Berwick, my recollection is that Major H. was hired to redo the far away holes on the West Links (i.e. 9 and 10) in the 1930's, but after they had been used as a bombing range in WWII, the Club swiftly and silently went back to ground zero and replaced them with holes more to their liking.

Rich

Niall

[Jud_T]

He lost the final of the 1909 British Amateur at Muirfield 1 up, so he clearly had game.

[Ally Mcintosh]

Neil

I'm pretty sure that Hutchison did indeed marry Joyce Wethered.

Tom

Hutchisons role at Gleneagles was as Director of Golf or some such title. He was actually on the patroll of the company. I seem to recall that Tommy Mac reckoned that Hutch shared Braids design fee with him but I never saw any evidence of that in the Goleneagles papers in the NLS. If I've got the right Hutch he also served in the war, got captured and interned in a POW camp where he made a small golf course and later wrote about it in Country Life.

I'll dig it out and send it on.

Niall

Since Joyce Wethered's married name from 1924 until her death was Lady Heathcote-Amory I doubt she married Horace, unless she was a bigamist.

Tom

Vis a vis North Berwick, my recollection is that Major H. was hired to redo the far away holes on the West Links (i.e. 9 and 10) in the 1930's, but after they had been used as a bombing range in WWII, the Club swiftly and silently went back to ground zero and replaced them with holes more to their liking.

Rich

Niall

Cecil Rich... Not Horace...

[Rich Goodale]

I said CKH, Ally.  Where did you get the idea that I was talking about Horace?

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

Joyce Wethered was engaged (announcement appeared in The Times on 9 November 1931) to Major C.K. Hutchison, but did not marry him. At the time, he was 54 and she was 30. She married Sir John Heathcoat-Amory in 1937. Hutchison was a good friend of Joyce's father Herbert Wethered (co-author of The Architectural Side of Golf with Tom Simpson).

[Niall C]

Donal

You are of course correct. Clearly my memory isn't as good as I think it is !

Niall

[BCrosby]

Joyce Wethered was engaged (announcement appeared in The Times on 9 November 1931) to Major C.K. Hutchison, but did not marry him. At the time, he was 54 and she was 30. She married Sir John Heathcoat-Amory in 1937. Hutchison was a good friend of Joyce's father Herbert Wethered (co-author of The Architectural Side of Golf with Tom Simpson).

Joyce waits six years after the break-up with Hutchison and finally marries at the age of 36 or 37? That we might someday know the story behind the story ....

Bob

[Neil_Crafter]

Bob, yes it would be interesting to know why the intended marriage between Hutchison and Wethered was broken off.

I have written a story on Joyce's marriage to Sir John Amory and the gift they received from her friend Tom Simpson which was a model of a putting green which was built shortly thereafter at their marital home Knightshayes Court. The green was opened with an exhibition match featuring Bernard Darwin and Tom Simpson against Roger Wethered and the local Tiverton professional W. Ivory. It is about to be published in the new issue 15 of our SAGCA 'Golf Architecture' magazine.

[BCrosby]

Neil -

I remember your article well.

As a curious side note, the (British) Antiques Roadshow opens each segment with a tour of an estate at which the show is being taped.

i saw a rebroadcast of one of the shows that opened with a tour of the manor house of Sir John Heathcoat-Amory. He seems to have been wealthy beyond dreams of avarice. Which may have had some bearing on Joyce's decision to marry.

Golf was a much smaller world back then. And a more interesting one.

Bob

  

[Niall C]

Bob, yes it would be interesting to know why the intended marriage between Hutchison and Wethered was broken off.

I have written a story on Joyce's marriage to Sir John Amory and the gift they received from her friend Tom Simpson which was a model of a putting green which was built shortly thereafter at their marital home Knightshayes Court. The green was opened with an exhibition match featuring Bernard Darwin and Tom Simpson against Roger Wethered and the local Tiverton professional W. Ivory. It is about to be published in the new issue 15 of our SAGCA 'Golf Architecture' magazine.

Neil

Pretty sure Darwin wrote an article about the course in Country Life including a photo, in which case if I'm right you should have a copy  I wouldn't mind seeing the Golf Architecture article in due course.

Niall