Memories of Wentworth
By
James Wyatt of Barton Wyatt
Wentworth has been called many things over the years: ‘Exclusive’ ‘Estate of the stars’ ‘World renowned’ and so on, but the story of Wentworth has changed over the years, since it was first developed by Walter Tarrant in the early 1920’s. Wentworth continues to evolve today with nearly 50 new houses currently under development, it’s clear that Wentworth has lost none of its appeal.
Tarrant has often been called a visionary, as the first developer to construct golf courses with houses dotted around them. His marketing was aimed at City gentlemen looking for weekend homes not too far from London with the added lure of a golf club close to your house. This recipe has since been repeated all over the World.
St George’s Hill in Weybridge which he started developing in 1911 was a resounding success and Tarrant set his eyes on an even larger prize by purchasing Wentworth in the early 1920’s. The Wentworth Estate covers 1,750 acres – almost twice as big as St George’s Hill and Tarrant set about instructing Harry Colt to design the first golf course – now the East Course and started building houses, albeit slightly smaller than some of the enormous piles he had built in Weybridge.
Tarrant also designed and constructed the early parade of shops in Virginia Water where my office is now. The original plans which I have show the bank to be where Barclays Bank is, a furniture shop where Barton Wyatt is, an estate agent where the Wentworth Patisserie is now, a butcher where the Viceroy Indian restaurant is, a fishmonger where the Glasshouse is now and beyond that, a greengrocer which is now an estate agents. All of these modest sized shops came with residential accommodation behind and above the shop.
Indeed, when my grandfather bought the old estate agency practice of Gosling and Milner in 1965, the offices still had a two bedroom flat above it which my parents moved into. My bedroom as a small baby is my office today!
Tarrant went on to construct the West Course, often known as the Burma Road, which is now used for the BMW PGA Championship in May.
War time bought a huge change to Wentworth with the Clubhouse being requisitioned at the outbreak of the war. Soon after, the infamous but little known tunnels were constructed underground next to the Clubhouse, for the General Headquarters (GHQ) Signals. The tunnels were constructed in cast iron in the same style as the London Underground and were designed to be the Signals headquarters if there had been a devastating invasion of London. At the same time, the Clubhouse was occupied as the GHQ Home Forces who also lived in many of the houses around the estate. I do wonder whether golf matches carried on as normal?
The tunnels are well guarded these days, although in the 1970’s my friends and I would often visit them as someone had thoughtfully chiselled out a hole in the back of the concrete entrance. It is rather fitting given Wentworth’s story during the war that our current local MP is the Rt. Hon. Phillip Hammond who was until recently Secretary of State for Defence.
The estate has seen various changes in the type of homeowner over the years that I have lived here. In the 70’s glamour, pop stars and entertainers poured into the estate with Elton John, a couple of Bee Gee’s, Bruce Forsyth, Chris Squire of the rock band Yes and Diana Dors all living on the estate. A frequent sight was seeing the blonde bombshell of Diana Dors driving through the village in her open top azure blue Rolls Royce with the flowing locks of Barry Gibb next to her. Similarly, I would think nothing of bumping into Elton John in film producer’s Brian Forbes’ book shop in the shopping parade. Yes, it was perhaps a strange place to grow up.
During the 1980’s the estate filled with a large number of Scandinavian buyers – particularly Swedish families who had been hounded out of their country through high taxes. Another resident was pop star Gary Numan who was fond of shag pile carpet in his house, not only on the floor but up the walls too. He also had a private plane that he had crashed parked on his driveway.
During the 1990’s Wentworth was taken over by a number of golfers, Nick Faldo – who had the slightly unnerving practice of standing at the far end of the Wentworth driving range with his instructor David Leadbetter, firing golf balls towards us less able golfers at the correct end.
Other golfing residents included multiple major winner Sandy Lyle, Ernie Els, Thomas Bjorn, Wentworth Pro and Ryder Cup Captain Bernard Gallagher and Sam Torrance.
In the late 1990’s, Chile’s ex-dictator General Pinochet found himself under house arrest on Wentworth in a house I managed. By that time, he was a doddery old chap, but could still manage a game of badminton. The modest four bedroom house was occupied by at least 12 people – mainly police on three shifts, 24 hours a day, so it isn’t surprising that our main management issue was the cess-pit which struggled a bit!
After 2000, we saw the inexorable rise of the overseas buyer with Wentworth becoming ever more highly sought after. The Clubhouse itself had been transformed by property tycoon Elliot Bernard with a new tennis, health, indoor swimming pool and spa complex being built ensuring that Wentworth was fast becoming the place to live. Larger houses were built and we saw the first inflow of the oligarchs from Eastern Europe particularly Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakhstanis. At the same time, a second international school opened locally which boosted the number of American’s living locally by 100%. We also saw a number of Far Eastern royal families buying locally, drawn not only by the golf but by the Guards Polo Club and the nearby Farnborough Private Airport.
However, it is worth pointing out that of the less than 600 houses that line the private roads of Wentworth, the vast majority are UK owned and occupied.
Today, Wentworth has a wide variety of property in varying sizes of gardens from well under half an acre to over 10 acres – the houses being worth anything from £500,000 to over £50,000,000. The area has a vibrant shopping parade with all the shops currently occupied – not a scenario that applies to many high streets around the country at the moment.
This is all a far cry from the days in the early 1920’s when Walter Tarrant had his vision, and we have him to thank for that.
For more information about buying or letting a property on the Wentworth Estate contact local resident and estate agent, James Wyatt of Barton Wyatt on 01344 843 000 or visit www.bartonwyatt.co.uk.