Major Kent golf club put up for sale

Sweetwoods Park Golf Club in Kent has been put up for sale with a guide price of £2.95 million.

The country estate, located between East Grinstead and Royal Tunbridge Wells, lies in the Wealden Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and occupies a secluded valley extending to 172 acres.

The golf club includes a 16^thcentury six bedroom farmhouse and adjoining 18 hole, par 72 golf course serviced by a detached clubhouse, professional shop and greenkeepers’ complex.

Sweetwoods Park

In 2006 The Golf Business profiled the, then 12-year-old, club. It was, at the time, the only golf club in the world that offered Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE), in which students were coached by the former tour pro Paul Lyons and taught a golf-related BTEC.

The golf course itself was formerly farmland which included a wartime airstrip for lysander spotter aircraft, a Roman road under what are now the first and second fairways, ancient woodland, green lanes, towering beeches, swathes of oak and birch, small lakes, tumbling streams and an abundance of sweet chestnut (hence the name).

In 2010 the club made national headlines when a six feettall topiary bush in the shape of a golfer about to hit a ball was dug up and stolen. The unique work of art had been imported from Italy and had only been in place at the club for six weeks. Police said at the time that several people would have been needed to dig up the bush and lift it over the perimeter fence of the golf club.

Ian Simpson, director in the leisure and trade related team at Savills, which is marketing the golf club, commented: “Sweetwoods Park Golf Club is an attractive lifestyle ownership proposition, combining a substantial period house with a golf business which generates significant income. A compact, well located country estate of this nature in an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty is likely to attract a broad range of purchasers with diverse range of ideas for its future.”