charitable trust, which set out strict criteria for the maintenance and upkeep of the various aspects of the site - including the castle’s pristine grounds, its 9-hole golf course, the many ornamental gardens and its rich diversity of flora and fauna. Tasked with looking after the grounds is a sixteen-strong groundscare team, led passionately by Estates Grounds Manager, James McConkie, now in his fourth year in the post. Before coming here, James ran his own tree and estate management business after studying forestry and woodland management at Sparsholt College of Agriculture, Winchester. He has amassed a wealth of industry
experience in placements that includes a private estate in Berkshire, Defence Estate Organisation in Aldershot and Sandhurst military academy, where he oversaw the management of military training areas. The team’s primary role is to maintain the upkeep of the castle grounds, with the golf course “largely a secondary feature”, James acknowledges. “The outlay always needs to be weighed against other areas of the site,” he says, “keeping a balance between maintaining the castle grounds, its image and the reasonable maintenance of the golf course.”
Set amid heath and parkland, the golf course nevertheless remains an alluring element of the Leeds Castle experience, remaining true to Lady Baillie’s philosophy, established when the course was opened in 1936.
“When Lady Baillie bought the castle,”
recounts James, “she poured a significant amount of money into bringing the castle back to its former glory as a place of residence where guests could come and enjoy a range of sport and leisure pursuits including shooting, croquet, fishing and golf.”
Guy Campbell designed the original, private course, provided purely for the enjoyment of her guests. Over the years, however, it opened up to the public, becoming today’s pay and play facility. “The course had its heyday in the 1980s,” recalls James, “when we were attracting some 36,000 rounds annually on average. That dropped to around 15,000 as local courses proliferated.” However, the trend is upwards once more, he adds, “although I don’t see us returning to those heady days”.
Head Groundsman, James Smith, nods. He took over the position three years ago after a fifteen year stint as assistant at the site before he moved away to greenkeeping posts in and around London.
James Smith, meanwhile, had developed his knowledge of irrigation and course reconstruction, amply equipping him to don Leeds’ head greenkeeper’s hat. “He turned up for the interview armed with a book of portfolio pictures that showed him building and redeveloping our own course,” explains James, “so, the decision of whether to offer him the job or not was a no-brainer.”
Gazing on a course that had clearly fallen away since the 1980s, both men knew the nine holes needed revitalising. “I arrived to a depleted machinery stock and with little budget to replace it,” explains James. “A Ransomes Mark 10 gang mower was the extent of our machine capability, so some sort of investment was necessary. The grass was cut to a uniform height of 15mm, with no course definition whatsoever.” He twisted a few arms and got the nod to invest in a new Toro fleet to handle the golf course, as well as the castle grounds and estate. “Rough now looks like rough and the greens like greens,” declares James Smith proudly, while looking across at the practice green that he had recently sand slitted with a Graden machine. The emphasis at Leeds has always been
on keeping the original features and the golf is no exception, with much of the original 1930s designs remaining, including a ‘Mackenzie’ hole, with its characteristic contours.
Some holes have been either reshaped
or repositioned - including the one that had skirted the moat - to ensure golf does not hinder the progress of day visitors or interfere with the overall theme of the site, but as James explains: “There is no real scope for development, as golf here is secondary to the rest of our offering, so there’s a limit to how far we can improve the course.”
The quantity of golf being played under McConkie and Smith’s watch is rising,
Aerial view of the 9 hole golf course
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