In 1889 a group of interested locals approached the Squire of the nearby Titsey estate with a view to creating a golf course on part of the estate. The response was favourable and an area of Limpsfield Common was allocated for the purpose - and Limpsfield Chart Golf Club came into existence - at the time it was one of only 4 golf clubs in Surrey.

The  clubhouse followed a few years later, and the club grew in popularity. It was especially popular with London gents, who would journey down by train, and be met by  a horse-drawn cab at Oxted station.

 

Granville Leveson-Gower [founder] was descended from the Gresham family. Sir Thomas Gresham, whose family name derives from the old East-Anglian name 'Greshop' for grasshopper, founded the original London Stock Exchange under Elizabeth 1, topped off by a huge brass weathervane in the form of a grasshopper. The original building perished in the Great Fire, presumably taking the grasshopper with it!

At the time, Thomas' brother, Sir John Gresham, owned the Titsey estate, which stretched form Wandsworth in the North to the Hever estate to the South. His direct-line descendants [pronounced lewson-gore] died out in the 1950s, and the Titsey estate, including Limpsfield Chart and Common, became the propertty of the National Trust.

The association with the family has continued with the use of the Grasshopper as the logo of the club, and also in the use of the Gresham name for the Artisans club, which came into being in 1909.

In 1924, following a frustrated attempt to increase the course to 18 holes, a group of members bought a piece of land and built Tandridge Golf Club on it. The members there take our references to the 'daughter club' in good part!

The course was relaid and extended at various times over its 120-year history, and further attempts have been made, even comparatively recently, to extend it to 18 holes. Members have mixed views on this - from those who feel that it would have produced a course to rival the 'Surrey Greats', to others who feel that the character and atmosphere of this historic, and delightful, little club would have been altered irrevocably.

Limpsfield Chart as it appeared on a postcard c 1906, looking North towards the North Downs

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