The 15th hole

The 15th in 1920

The famous short hole, played over or round the old chalk pit to a small green on its north side. John Swain, who grew up on the estate in the 1950s, remembers the pit as Nelson's Drop, the obstacle on this hole in the original layout (1912 to 1935). He takes it to be medieval in origin, with digging for gravel, sand and chalk carrying on into the Victorian era; the council's plan simply calls it a medieval chalk pit. Darwin, who knew it as the 9th, found it only 113 yards but frightening, with bunkers eating into a little table of a green and "a drop to perdition on the left". Sporting Life in 1927 describes it as a plateau green with a very steep, high slope on the left, heavily bunkered in front and on the right, and with the deep pit running all the way from tee to green.^{1,5,6,10,12,13}

After 1936

Became the 9th (110 yards on both cards). Darwin gives 113 yards, a little more.

There today

The pit survives as a deep, steep-sided hollow in the north-west tip of Big Wood, on the site's north boundary. The green was on the open grass just north of it, about 100 metres from Vivian Close.

Look for

View the pit from the open grass but do not climb into it. It is deep and steep-sided, and the council records a 15-metre test shaft, found in 2006 and now covered, in an old chalk pit on this boundary, most likely this one.