RLGC MEMBER AND ARCHITECT, PAUL FALCONER, REFLECTS ON THE HOYLAKE CLUBHOUSE, A BUILDING THAT WILL ONCE AGAIN BE CENTRE STAGE THIS YEAR.
AS THE OPEN RETURNS to Hoylake the quality and condition of the course are rightly at the forefront of our minds and the subject of endless spike bar debate. But as members or guests we should also acknowledge our good fortune in being able to enjoy the Club’s second major asset, its magnificent Clubhouse. At the foundation of the Club in 1869
the members enjoyed the facilities of The Royal Hotel on Stanley Road, adjacent to the current 17th Hole. Rooms were
Grand
hired from the landlord, the father of the legendary John Ball, but as the end of the century approached the membership decided that such a tenancy did not match their ambitions and so the new Clubhouse was considered on the opposite side of the course. In planning the move from the austere
pile of The Royal Hotel local architects Woodfall and Eccles were engaged, who were later to also design the Clubhouse for Royal Lytham and St Annes. The design of purpose-built golf Clubhouses was in its infancy, with the most hallowed of all, St Andrews, being completed in 1854. It was to be 1893 before the very first such project in America was built, at Shinnecock Hills. The members brought to their task an
appetite for excellence which reflected the City of Liverpool at that time. The merchant class of this expanding city expressed their prominence in public and
commercial projects of real substance such as the greatest monument of the new Liverpool, St George’s Hall (1854) – classically inspired and culturally aspiring. An exact contemporary of the construction of the new Clubhouse was Norman Shaw’s office building for the White Star Line completed in 1895, where the patrons of the ill-fated RMS Titanic made their grand plans. Woodfall and Eccles by-passed the
Gothic versus Classical style–wars of the time to alight on a more measured design which perfectly suited its purpose and in many ways has beautifully reflected the character of the Club itself - substantial but essentially understated. The public-facing elevation to Meols Drive was welcoming enough, its fine brickwork and stone details typical of late Victorian country house architecture. The façade
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ROYAL LIVERPOOL GOLF CLUB MAGAZINE 2 014
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