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Birdlip Golf Club, Gloucestershire. (1897 - 1900s)
The club was founded in 1897.
The nine-hole course was situated on Birdlip Common.
The following article from the Gloucestershire Chronicle dated Saturday 23 April 1898 announces the arrival of the club:-
“There can be no question that golf as an outdoor game is fast eclipsing all others, except perhaps cricket, and devotees of golf would not even accept that, but would be found enthusiastically championing the game of bunkers, stymies, tees, and various other mysterious names unknown to the general public, who are ignorant of the meaning of such technical phrases. And yet another club has been inaugurated in Gloucestershire. We allude to the Birdlip Golf Club, under the St Andrews club rules, as far as they are applicable, the hon. secretary and treasurer is Mr A S Helps, of Great Whitcombe. The weekly club meetings are to be held on Friday afternoons from April to October, and the opening meeting took place yesterday. We feel sure that of all the golf grounds in Great Britain, there can possibly be no more picturesque ground, either for scenery or for the healthful and accompanying ozone than the present one, whose links are placed at Birdlip. The yearly subscriptions to the club are for gentlemen £1, and ladies ten shillings, four members of a family £2, and visitors introduced by the committee 2/6 a week. The committee included Mr M F Hicks-Beach, Whitcombe Park, Stroud; Rev A G Butler, 14 Norham Gardens, Oxford, and The Cottage, Birdlip, together with other well known golfers from Cheltenham, Brimpsfield, etc. We feel sure the club has a prosperous future before it, and we wish it every success.”
Advert from the Gloucester Citizen Saturday 6 June 1903 mentions golf - "Birdlip,- Harrison's Private Hotel and Boarding House - Guests received en. pension; also very comfortable and quite apartments, especially for invalids. Croquet and tennis lawn; golf".
From the Clifton Society Thursday 27 August 1903; Secretary - A S Helps, Great Witcombe near Gloucester; nine-hole course; 2 shillings and sixpence a week.
The secretary in 1904/5 was W J Harrison, Harrisons Hotel, Birdlip.
The club disappeared in about 1908.
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