The golf course in the suburb of Wardley in the town called The Felling
It is not known why, in 1912, a bunch of golfers left the Pelaw golf club to form Heworth golf club on the other side of the street but it's my guess that it must have been because the name was both geographically and historically incorrect. Pelaw was just a big collection of CWS factories a good way away from the course and was completely inappropriate ...unless of course the CWS built the course..they didn't did they?
The renegades chose to call their new course Heworth which was definitely less daft than Pelaw. However the course is in the suburb of Wardley and the suburbs of Heworth and Pelaw are, and were in 1912, some way away, all three are suburbs of the town called The Felling.
Here's the1920/30s map showing the Pelaw Golf Course and the Heworth Golf Course on either side of Leam Lane running from the suburb of Wardley at the bottom left side of the map to the neighbourhood of White Mare Pool at the top right
So the new course should have been called either after the town or the suburb where it lay. Wardley is a prettier name and place than Felling so my vote then would have been to call it Wardley Golf Club. Going back into pre-industrial history Heworth was the main name of the whole area so Heworth Golf Club wasn't that bad a name. Two of the early big wigs were brothers Jack Green and James Fenwick Green who had shops on Felling High Street so I can see why they would not want their golf course to be called Felling and fair enough they and others settled on Heworth.
I read, on the internet, a bio of John Robinson Spark who in the 1960's "joined Wardley Golf Club". If you google Wardley Golf Club you get Heworth Golf Club so, as a member of this very club, I've scrapped my letter to the Committee requesting a name change. However, when playing golf away from the area I may tell folk I'm a member of Wardley Golf Club. There's no other golf club in the World called Wardley but Heworth is as common as muck..OK, there's two in the World and the other one is near York ...which is var nye the next tattie field to us
The centenary of Heworth Golf Club in Wardley was in 2012 and was celebrated in style. A wonderful book recording all the celebration events was published and well worth a read.
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