Charnwood Forest

The picturesque upland tract of Charnwood Forest extends to around 6,100 acres at an elevation of 600 feet and upwards, with many interesting recreational sites available for woodland walks, hillwalking and rock climbing.

Charnwood Forest Golf Club lies fives mile to the south of Loughborough, where a 9-hole heathland course was first set out in 1890 within what was then the Beaumanor Estate. When the property was broken up after WWII, the club purchased the 77-acre course for £2,570.

Local Vicar, the Reverend Robert Colquhoun Faithfull, set out the original holes and the club states the layout “has changed many times in the past 100 years”. It also asserts that the course is “influenced by the James Braid style of design” without actually saying that he re-designed it.

John F. Moreton and Iain Cumming in their book James Braid and his Four Hundred Golf Courses refer to a visit Braid may have made in 1927: “a clubhouse fire in 1977 meant the destruction of many of the records, including the Braid link, allegedly relating to the remodelling of the course.

Originally the course was private, belonging to the Herrick family. They rented it to the club at some stage. The club finally acquired it in 1946. It is a spectacular moorland course running round a granite outcrop in the forest from which it takes its name. There are no bunkers because the bracken, gorse and granite outcrops present enough hazards.

Comparing two cards from 1912 and 1981, one notes 442 yards difference in favour of the latter year, and it is difficult to match up any of the holes except a medium-length par three.”

The search for evidence that Braid did more than “influence” the design of the layout continues at the club…