Conservation & Ecology


Mere Golf Club


Not a Mere dalliance


James Hutchinson heads to The Mere Golf Resort and Spa in Cheshire to review the course’s environmental credentials and discovers invasive rhododendrons ... and geese!


T


o explain briefly, a Mere is a body of water which is broader than it is deep and apparently has no thermocline; that’s what a dictionary says anyway. A thermocline is the layer of water


where the temperature changes from the warmer upper layer to the almost permanently colder layer beneath - you learn something new every day, don’t you? I know this pearl of information because I just read about it whilst researching this article on a glorious golf course in the North West of England called The


110 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2016


Mere Golf Resort and Spa, in Knutsford, Cheshire. I stumbled upon many other interesting facts about the mere, including how the glacial till formed it millenniums ago, or the history of the people who settled alongside the mere (which, incidentally, is mentioned in the Domesday Book) and their subsequent lifestyles, but the stuff I was really interested in was how the mere actually interacted with the wildlife which resides there and, in particular, the wildlife which resides at The Mere Golf


Resort and Spa, of which there’s quite a bit! Let’s concentrate on the golf course before I


ramble on about how fantastic the wildlife is; It’s an 18-holes parkland style, tree lined course with free flowing fairways and water hazards. By that description you are probably thinking “nothing special there then”, but read on as this is no ordinary golfing course. The course itself is managed by a chap whose knowledge and education are something which I find nothing short of startling, Gwynn Davies BSc (Hons). The


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