Southwick Golf Club S
horeham used to be a town with its own golf course. The Southdown Golf Club was originally founded in 1900.It was originally situated on Slonk Hill, with the Golf House at the bottom of New Barn Road. The course was a mile and a quarter north of the Upper Shoreham Road and east of Steyning Road, above where the A27 bypass is now. The course operated from Buckingham Barn until 1903, when a brand new clubhouse opened at what is now the south end of New Barn Lane. This clubhouse was an impressive, purpose-built structure with an attractive balcony looking out over the course. This was the heyday of the Shoreham golf club when its popularity was at its height. With the onset of the First World War the golf course’s days were numbered. By 1914 it was rumoured that an army camp would be built on Slonk Hill, but local residents had no idea of the huge scale of the military operation that would very shortly unfold. The army requisitioned the golf course late in 1914 and trains filled with soldiers began arriving at Shoreham station. Thousands of men marched up Buckingham Road to the Downs where they pitched hundreds of tents on the golf course. These were later to be replaced by huts. The first night of the camp though was chaotic, as not enough provisions had arrived to feed the great number of men. The people of Shoreham generously helped out with donations of groceries however. The purpose built clubhouse of the golf club at the bottom of New Barn Lane became at this time private dwelling, occupied by the local fire chief. It was still though known as The Golf House. After the First World War, attempts were made to re-open the now overgrown golf course, notably in the mid-1920s, but these efforts came to nothing. Finally though a golf new course was laid out and opened in 1935. It was situated at New Erringham, north of where the Holmbush Centre is now. This 1930s version of the golf club used a different building again
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for its clubhouse. This clubhouse was originally one of the old post houses on what was once the main road between Brighton and Horsham, and as a coaching inn it dated from around 1735. It is then believed to have become the home of a farmer called Richard Sharpe from 1847 to 1866. At the time of the golf course, the once busy road had become a bridleway, which continued to exist until the building of the bypass. The green fees upon the club re-opening in 1935 were 2/6d. per day, 7/6d. a week or £1 a month. The subscription fee for both men and women golfers was set at £4.40 with entrance fees at £3.30. For those on leave from abroad there were special terms available, on application to the club secretary. Non-playing members and those living outside of a 40mile radius were charged a £2.20 subscription. During the 1930s the golf club was mentioned as a selling point for many of the new housing developments being built in the Upper Shoreham Road area. Jack J. Parlett, builder and decorator of Old Shoreham Road offered in an advertisement of this time, “All brick houses and bungalows
now in course of erection. Facing Downs near Golf Links. Five minutes from station and buses”. However with the coming of the Second World War, the golf club was once again forced to close. With the threat of aerial bombardment, playing golf on the isolated Downs was not longer a possibility. In the 1940s the clubhouse of the golf course was used as a nightclub for a time while the Downs were fenced off with barbed wire. The clubhouse eventually caught fire and burnt down during the war and was then used by the army for target practice. After the war the land that had once been the golf course was, like much of the previously open Downland, fenced off, ploughed and used to grow corn, under the directions of the West Sussex Agricultural Executive Committee. Old Shoreham farm took responsibility for the land at this time. With the building of the A27 bypass which opened in 1970 and further building and development on the southern slopes of the Downs, the prospect of there being a golf course at Shoreham again at any point in the future looks unlikely. Judy Upton To advertise call: 01273 452065