No time for a round

Recently I brought to the top of the proverbial pile a so far unanswered question about an alleged golf course between Smallford and Hatfield.  Apart from being taken off the scent by the mis-naming of St Albans Road West as Hatfield Road, there did not appear to be anyone with further information.  Until, that is, a reader discovered a website devoted to former golf courses (Golf's Missing Links).

Great Nast Hyde.  Courtesy HALS

The brief text identified it as Nast Hyde Golf Club.  I guess the text originally came from a golfing yearbook of 1910. "...the opening of a new railway station about a mile from Hatfield, on 1st February.  The station had been built to serve a fine new residential site, and among other features will be an eighteen hole golf course.  In 1914 the Secretary was Colonel Schreiber and the professional E Gow.  An eighteen-hole undulating course on good turf, well drained on gravel soil. Subs for gents were £3.3.0 (£3.15) and for ladies £1.1.0 (£1.05).  Visitors' fees were 1/- (5p) at any time."

Very promising.  It seems from the above information that during the period  to 1914 the course was in development; hence the identification of nearby residents as workers on the golf course in the 1911 census.  The course, and the houses (of which very few now remain) were part of an attempted sale of land at Great Nast Hyde as early as 1889.  The manor house was also a working farm, separate from Little Nast Hyde Farm, and the estate included land on both sides of St Albans Road, including Beech Farm.

Golf course site circled.  Courtesy Google Maps

Eventually, over a decade, some thirty homes were erected, but it was clear that many more were anticipated.  By 1914, as soon as the golf course had opened, the dark clouds of war approached and large numbers of men volunteered or were later conscripted for military service, and were therefore lost to the local community and its trades.

 A further attempt to sell 441 acres of Nast Hyde Estate was made in 1925 by Foster & Cranfield London EC, including what had been the formative golf course, now clearly identified as 36 acres between Coopers Green Lane and St Albans Road West, immediately south of a block of woodland with shooting rights, known as Home Covert.  The 1925 estate sale brochure gave the option to re-open the former golf course, or to develop.  In the words of the brochure: "eminently suitable for the erection of medium-sized detached houses or bungalows, for which there is a great demand as very little building has been carried out in the district for some years past."  On the bulk of the land available north of St Albans Road, I think it is fair to say not a single additional house was built.  The intervention of aeronautical activity at this time is quite another story.

South of St Albans Road West it was a different story.  Although it took a further five years, two fields were developed as the Selwyn and Poplar estates, only part of the latter having been completed before the onset of the Second World War.  Oh, and the part of the 1927-built Barnet Bypass between the Roehyde Interchange and The Comet is on former Nast Hyde land purchased at the time.

Well, in spite of everything, the land which had just about become a golf course, is still undeveloped.  It is within the boundary of Ellenbrook Fields, the country park which has yet to be officially created – look forward to some gravel extraction first, maybe – so there may yet be the opportunity for a golf course, though perhaps not 18 holes.  It may even sport the title Nast Hyde Golf Course.  Speculation!