Nice to Minchinhampton get a mention, Ryan.
To this day I do not believe I've felt a greater sense of anticipation than when I stared out the clubhouse window at Delamere Forest.
More than the few heathlands I've yet to see, the two inland courses I most want to visit in Ing-er-land are Ganton and Delamere Forest
Ally, you should try to add on Beau Desert. The Fowler greens there are wilder than those at Delamere Forest. Otherwise there is a similar feeling in their isolated locations. Two fine inland courses be tween Manchester and Birmingham.
A question about Delamere. Removing trees gets discussed herein quite a bit, and I'm no great fan of tree lined avenues, but with reference to the mention above of Delemere Forest being 'stark and barren', does that mean that an inland course can go too far the other way and not have enough trees?
As to inland courses generally, most of the major inland cities have a fine bunch of courses around them. For example, Birmingham, which is about as inland as one can get in the England, has a whole host of MacKenzie, Simpson/Fowler, Colt, Vardon, Braid etc courses such as clockwise from north Beau Desert, Little Aston, Sutton Coldfield, Whittington Heath, Copt Heath, Blackwell, Enville (x2), South Staffs plus inside the ring the likes of Harbourne and Edgbaston plus the lesser to some but still nice Olton and even Walsall with it's fab still original Dr MacK greens. Bound to be one or two I've missed out.....including one multi-Ryder Cup venue (sic).
As to Ally's query about inland best from the 60's to the present day I suggest you need to slip over the River Severn and play the 2010 at CM. Forget about the RC ho-ha and the TV and the publicity chat and the media articles and
focus purely on the 18-holes themselves for I doubt you'll find a better 18-hole test of modern inland golf than the 2010. If in doubt actually play it, there are plenty of surprisingly cheap deals available, especially through the off-season, and the conditioning is superb.
atb