Knebworth Golf Club

Description

This is a good example of perfectly symmetrical treatment in a type of building which usually is conceived on irregular lines. Its plain brick and pantiled roof show none of those prettinesses which are too often thought the needful equipment of a building consecrated to play. The dignified planning of the forecourt has the advantage of pulling together into a coherent scheme the outbuildings which are so important an element in the working of the place. Often these are mere hutches scattered about without any definite relation to the club- house. Here they are an added attraction instead of an eyesore. The disposition of the rooms in the club-house is straightforward and convenient, and ample floor area is provided for the dressing-room. (Weaver, 1913, p.237)

Golf Club House. 1908 by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Neo Georgian style. Red brick with lighter red brick dressings. Hipped pantile roof with hipped dormers. Single storey and attics. Sash windows with glazing bars.

Rectangular main block has a three-window projecting centre with an octagonal glazed cupola. Door has fielded panels and architrave surround. Single dormers on sides of protection and two flanking these. Shallow panels in walls. Side quadrant walls with tile coping link main block with square corner pavilions. These have arched windows on courtyard sides and roundels to front elevations. Extensions of three windows left and right of main block behind quadrants with parapets. Circa 1979 ‘rebuilt pavilion behind right corner pavilion; weatherboarded and pantiled. Golf course elevation has glazed c1979 central extension. The wings each side are two windows with leaded dormer casements. (Historic England, list entry 1174298)

In 1903 Lord Lytton, inspired by Letchworth, conceived the idea of a garden village, and in 1904 consulted his brother-in-law, Lutyens, before turning to Pepler & Allen for a masterplan. Sites were being sold in 1908, but in 1910 Lytton returned to Lutyens, who produced a revised plan in association with Thomas Adams, consulting surveyor, who had previously worked at Letchworth. Work started formally in 1912, was interrupted by the First World War, and continued after it with A. & J. Soutar as consulting architects, following their work at Ruislip Manor and Hampstead Garden Suburb. There is little evidence of Lutyens’s formal scheme, but he included in it his Neo-Georgian Golf Club House, 1908, on the northern edge of the village. A straight road led up to this (an effect now lost) with Beacon House, on its w side, built in 1912 for the golf club manager, joining up with the pre-existing lane that winds back down to the mainly c18 buildings of Deard’s End Farm, Park Lane. Nos. 3 and 7 Deard’s End Lane are also by Lutyens, the former 1912 but the latter designed in 1901 as a pair of cottages, soon converted to a single dwelling. (Bettley et al, 2019, pp.344-5)

Bibliography

Weaver, L. (1913) Houses and Gardens by E L Lutyens. London: Country Life.

Historic England. Golf Club House. [Online] Available from: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1174298

Bettley J, Pevsner N, Cherry B (2019) Hertfordshire. The Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Also Cited In

Weaver, L. (1913) Houses and Gardens by E L Lutyens. London: Country Life.

Listing Grade

II

Listing Reference

1174298

Client