Location Now

Pre-New Town Location

Click image to Enlarge

Information about this Farm:

BLACKWELL FARM was situated on the east side of the Lickey Incline just beyond Blackwell Station. It was included in the Hewell Estates, and the tenant around kept a dairy herd and other livestock on an area of undulating pasture land between Agmore Road and Blackwell Road. The farm buildings included stables and cowsheds around three sides of a spacious farmyard, together with the farmhouse, barns and a nearby cottage for a cowman.

Back in 1893 a newly-formed golf club was using three of his fields, some 49 acres, for a nine-hole golf course, at a yearly rental of £15.  Members of the newly formed club had to endure the uneven ground, stray animals and cattle dung. There was no agreed length of tenure and for the first few years no club house in which to wash, shelter

or change clothes, and no toilets. In 1899, a portable building, nick-named "The tin tabernacle", was erected in the farm's orchard, and in 1905 primitive lavatories were provided. It was soon clear that the long-term future of the club and its expansion to a full 18-hole course was dependent on the purchase of the farm. This move, however, was resisted by Lord Windsor, by John Allsebrook, and then by George Allsebrook, who took over the farm following his father's death in 1901.

Membership of the golf club continued to increase before and after the disruption of the 1914-18 War, and several limited-term leases were arranged, but it was not until 1921 that an influential and determined member of the club, Guy Bigwood, a Birmingham estate agent, was able to conclude an agreement for the takeover of the tenancy of the farm. . By 1923 the enlarged course of 18 holes was ready for use and it was opened with due ceremony on 4th August 1923 by the club's president, Ivor Miles, Earl of Plymouth. Fortunately the farm buildings were retained and adapted for use as the clubhouse with all the necessary amenities, including bar and restaurant. Over the years many well-known local people have been members and officials of the club which owes much to its pioneering and enthusiastic early members.

Source: A Hundred Years In Tardebigge – The Revd Alan White