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From Andalucia to Aberdeenshire, when new golf courses are opened, the developer expects to make more profit from houses built along the boundaries of the golf course than from the course itself.

In 1923, when four landowners granted to the Liphook Golf Company the right to develop a course on their land, it is unlikely that such thoughts occurred to them.

Of today’s landowners, WERA (Wheatsheaf Enclosure Residents Association) matters most to the Club.  What are now the 1st to 6th, 15th, 16th and part of the 17th holes are built on land owned by WERA; the Club, as a resident of the Enclosure, is itself a member. Most of the houses which border the course are in the Enclosure and over the decades, many distinguished members have lived there.

It was the illustrious Victorian engineer Sir John Hawkshaw who bought the manorship of Rogate Bohunt in 1866, including some Common land and what is quaintly known as Manorial Waste. Just before the end of the nineteenth century, the Common land was controversially ‘inclosed’ and bunds were built around  most of it – possibly to preserve the land from the animals owned by the remaining commoners. Hence the name Inclosure; ‘Wheatsheaf’ came from the Hotel on the Portsmouth Road in which the Golf Club originally lodged – and which soon changed its name to Links. 

When Hawkshaw’s grandson Oliver sold off the rest of the Hollycombe Estate and the Lordship of the Manor in 1923, he retained the Wheatsheaf Inclosure and the Manorial Waste and granted the newly-formed Liphook Golf Club Company a 99-year lease to build part of its course on this land, mainly on the ‘Waste’. 

Oliver joined the Board of Directors of the Golf Company; about ten houses were built on the Inclosure by 1932, each on a very large plot of land. In 1949 Oliver Hawkshaw sold the Club extra land at the south of the Inclosure so that the Club could move from the Links Hotel to old Army huts which were replaced in 1961 by today’s Clubhouse; Oliver Hawkshaw died that year in Wiltshire, and the land passed to his daughter Chrystal Mary Olivia Creswell. In 1950, Capt Cresswell fell ill and his widow sold the remaining plots for housing. She reaped a reward from her father’s generosity to the Club but no-one could call it a quick profit! There are now 35 houses in what was now spelled the Enclosure, most on smaller portions of land than the earlier buildings.

There could have been more development, had not four enterprising residents bought the narrow roads through the Enclosure, to stop them being widened and thus provide access for many more houses. The road has been kept narrow to this day for the same reason; the Golf Club now shares responsibility with other WERA members for its upkeep.

Indeed, during the savage winter this year the green staff earned the gratitude of the residents by clearing the snow off the main road and some driveways (left). The Wheatsheaf Private Roads Company formed the basis of the Wheatsheaf Enclosure Residents Association which was formed in 1990.Under the chairmanship of Liphook stalwart Gerry Plumer, WERA agreed to extend the Club’s lease of its land to 300 years and the relationship between LGC and WERA is governed by that Lease, created in 1994. It gives the Club the right to manage WERA land which is part of the course but in cases where tree removal or other major changes are proposed, there is discussion between the two - conservation of land is an important consideration.

The current Chairman of WERA is Peter Anson, a member of the Club and a regular golfer; of the other five Directors, two are also members of the Club. The task of the Board is to maintain roads and verges in satisfactory condition and to further the interests of WERA members. Throughout the year, the Club and WERA meet formally and informally to debate matters of concern and the relationship is usually one of easy familiarity but that is not to say that debates are a mere “rubber-stamp” operation.

/-- Liphook Archive Information --/
#Medium:Document#
#Location:Website#
#Date Of Event:1158 - present#
#Date Item Created:October 2010#
#Author:Michael Blakstad & Tony Rudgard#
#Copyright:#