LBGC Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 11
Langland Centenary Book
15/2/05
6:07 pm
Page 11
The History of the Club
Chapter 1: Early Days
It seems certain that the land running to the edge of Newton
Cliffs has been cultivated for many years. Indeed, the very
texture of the grass on the present course indicates how well
nurtured the land has been. A map, provisionally dated as 1842,
shows a maze of small fields running from Newton village
down to Langland Bay in the south and to Caswell Bay in the
west with no roads south of the village except for what is now
Mary Twill Lane, and a steep cart track on the line of the
present Brynfield Road. The book ‘A Guide to Gower’,
published by the Gower Society, says of Newton: “the village
stands in the centre of an area of long narrow fields derived
from the enclosed strips of an early medieval open field
settlement”.
A further map, provisionally dated 1852, shows that a
considerable change has taken place in the area.The small fields
had been merged into larger units; the house, then known as
Llan-y-Llan, but now known to us as the Langland Bay
Convalescent Home, had been built, together with the
numerous coach houses and out-buildings which formed the
Langland Bay Hotel and now the Crawshaw Court flats. It
appears that this imposing edifice was built by the Crawshaw
family, the Merthyr Tydfil Ironmasters, for use as a summer
residence. It is believed that the original drive entrance
commenced near what is now Underhill Park, but later maps
indicate that it was approached by a road known as Alma Road,
and in 1902 Langland Bay Road was still known as Alma Road.
Further to the west of this house the 1852 map now shows
Langland Farm, which years later is described as Langland
Home Farm. It seems probable, therefore, that the main
buildings of our present clubhouse, together with the outbuildings on the line of our current locker rooms complex
were constructed contemporaneously with the present
Convalescent Home in the nineteenth century.The limestone
for the building of the house and the farm was locally quarried
from small quarries on the site of the house, where the flats on
the road to the clubhouse now stand and also alongside our
present 14th tee, in addition to the larger quarries of Coltshill
and Oystermouth.The ridge at the side of the third fairway and
running across the front of the third green was once a road for
the transport of materials from the quarry near the 14th tee
and its adjacent lime-kiln to the farmhouse then in the course
of erection. A further limekiln once stood at the foot of the
bank on the side of the 5th fairway, and traces of the roadway
can still be seen.
By about 1894 the house Llan-y-Llan had been converted into
a hotel - the Langland Bay Hotel - which had among its public
rooms a “Restaurant Bar”, a “Smoking and Billiard Room”, and
a “Smoking and Recreation Room” which was next to the
“Salle-a-Manger”. Certainly there seemed to be a need for
smoking rooms in those days, but it was at this hotel, possibly
in one of those smoking rooms, that a very important meeting
took place in 1901.
Old inhabitants of Newton village have said that golf was played
on the cliff top in the nineteenth century, but the first written
mention of golf at Langland is in the Club’s first minute book,
and is dated 24th September 1901.This is reproduced on the
next page as it represents what may be called our ‘Founding
Charter’.
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