Club History
Todmorden Golf Club was formed in 1894 at the clubs former site at Todmorden Edge on the uplands overlooking Centre Vale Park.
The decision to form a club was taken at a preliminary general meeting in the Endowed School in the town centre on October 18th 1894. The following month it was reported that land had been obtained from three farmers at Flailcroft and Dyke Farms, consisting of 34 acres at 7s. 6d. per acre, along with two cottages for a clubhouse and a residence for the professional.
Local architect Mr Jesse Horsfall designed the nine holes course and Mr A Hird professional of Fixby Golf Club Huddersfield was engaged to lay out the ground to the best advantage.
On May 4th, 1895 a course of just over 2,000yds. in length with fenced greens to prevent damage from cattle was finally opened. It is hard to imagine that an offer was accepted to supply cylinders adapted for rollers at the rate of old iron!
Mr E B Fielden of Dobroyd Castle agreed to be President and Mr S Fielden Vice President and Mr E Aitken and Mr J Gask Secretary and Treasurer respectively. There were 66 promoters. One of the nineteen rules threatened with resignation any member whose conduct, either in or out of the club was likely to be injurious to the character and interests of the club!
One who had intimate recollections of the course and players at Todmorden Edge was former caddie Mr John Lever, who sadly died in Ferney Lee Old peoples Home in July 1982 aged 88. Before he was ten he and other caddies carried the clubs of Hebden Bridge players from Todmorden Station up the steep Doghouse Lane, as there were no cars, and received 2d or 3d for the nine holes!
In 1906 a limited company was formed to take the lease of the new links at Rive Rocks and plans were approved to convert the farmhouse originally built in 1764 into the existing clubhouse. The farmhouse is over 200 years old and the date of 1794 was revealed carved in the stone lintel after a layer of cement had been chiselled off over what is now an interior doorway.
The compact 9 hole golf course at Rive Rocks Cross Stone is set on a plateau 400 feet above the town with breathtaking views of the Pennines and their carved valleys meandering almost aimlessly towards Halifax, Burnley and Rochdale.
Dobroyd Castle the stately seat of the Fielden family (800 feet) and the conspicuous peace monument (1300 feet) of Stoodley Pike standing sentinel in the distance. The white gable-end of what was the former old clubhouse at Todmorden Edge (900ft), now a private residence, can also be seen from the course.
The new links were finally opened on 1st January 1907 without apparently anything of any significance so in 2007 to acknowledge the anniversary of the move it was decided that the Rive Rocks Centenary Competition should be staged and played for annually. As a result Todmorden Golf Club is very proud to boast and celebrate two Centenaries! A site which is bounded on one side by the infamous Calderdale Way and encompasses a Celtic burial ground.
Minute books from 1916 to 1928 are missing, but it is more than likely that until about that period the holes remained almost unaltered. The old 4th up the rocks was to a green near the frying pan: just beyond that green was the tee to the short 5th: and the 9th was from the hill top (now the 1st tee) over the dam to the green below the clubhouse. The dam at this hole used to provide winter sports for skaters in years when snow and ice stayed for long periods.
When permission was obtained to play on the two fields above Hanging Field Farm the old 4th was lengthened to where the 5th green now is, and the old short 5th was replaced by a long hole, using the same green but a tee where the present one is for the 6th.
Golf was played on this second-phrase course until about 1956, when a new green near the boundary wall of the field above Hanging Field Farm (the present 4th) was built, and a short hole was slotted in to become the present 5th. Then came the abandonment in the early sixties of the old 9th hole, and what is now the 9th was made longer by putting the tee farther behind the dam and the hole itself beyond the top of the hill - some 50 yards behind where the old 8th green was.
Whilst all these alterations were going on, greens were built up and levelled, tees enlarged and increased, and sand bunkers inlaid into the structure of the course.
The dam near the 8th green dates back to 1908, when the basin was flooded to make a water hazard, which it was for several years until allowed to go dry again. In 1976 the dam was re-flooded to store water for use in drought.
What has become known as the frying pan is a saucer-shaped piece of ground 200 yards along the 6th fairway. It was the Blackheath Bronze Age burial circle, in which urns were found in 1898. A better known and more frequented burial ground is the aforementioned dam, which over the years must have been the resting place of hundreds and hundreds of balls!
Important alterations to the clubhouse were considered and the extension with its attractive veranda at the front of the building was opened on June 3 1933. To mark the fiftieth year of the Rive Rocks Club a golden jubilee bar was opened in 1957 and further extensions to the bar were made in 1966. 1974 saw another clubhouse extension and 1979 the imposing bar as it is now was constructed.
More recently is the construction of the 16th hole as an alternative to the par 3, 7th signature hole down the rocks. This was opened for the 2003 season when Keith Warburton was Captain making Todmorden Golf Club a 10 hole golf course.
2007 saw the installation of the new Sprinkler system.
Todmorden Golf Club will always be indebted to its members for their generosity, dedication and enthusiasm.