Gleneagles Hotel and Golf, a proposal, 1919
£2,375
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photography
Auction: 31 August 2016 at 12:00 BST
Description
The Gleneagles Scheme, dated 14th May, 1919. 22 typed pages of "memorandum", in purple ink, seemingly hectograph copies or spirit duplications, in the style of a proposal for the recommencement of the building of Gleneagles hotel following the First World War, with a map of the United Kingdom, detailing the site of Gleneagles, illustrated with 24 captioned photographs, including reproductions of artists' impressions of the hotel, and golfers playing on the courses, all bound in a blue morocco book gilt stamped GLENEAGLES to upper cover, 34 x 23cm; AND Photographs 11 additional loose photographs, 29.5 x 24cm each, showing the completed hotel and grounds, with the stamps of 'Bedford Lemere & Co. Architectural Photographers' and 'L.M.S. Hotel Services St Pancras' to reverse of photographs (12)
Footnote
Note: No other copies traced in National Archives
In 1910 Donald Matheson, General Manager of the Caledonian Railway Company, conjured the vision of the Gleneagles Hotel, to be situated in the area of Auchterarder in Scotland. The hotel was to provide a luxury experience and a variety of leisure pursuits such as fishing and, most notably, golf. The hotel was called "the Riviera in the Highlands".
The introduction to the "proposal" presented here reads: It is believed that if a new and up-to-date Hotel were established in a central district of the country... and there were conveniently attached to it facilities for golfing, fishing, shooting and motoring, the best of people would be attracted... and success would be assured...
This was fully realised a number of years ago, and... Gleneagles was chosen as a siutable place to have such an Hotel...
The building was designed by Matthew Adam in 1913 and the preliminary scheme for it was created by James Miller.
However, in 1914 the building project was halted due to the outbreak of World War I . It is likely that the project was halted in order for young men to go away on military service. At the end of the War, the primary leisure activity of golf was a priority for James Baird who was responsible for the construction of the hotel's golf courses and in 1919 the King's Course was officially opened for play. The following year Gleneagles hosted the Scottish Professional Championship, the first golf competition in a series of golfing events hosted by Gleneagles such as the Glasgow Herald Tournament - the precursor to the Ryder Cup. The project for the construction of the hotel itself was not resumed until 1922. The document for sale here would seem to be a copy of a proposal, or a plan, to re-start the construction.
The hotel was officially opened in 1924, with extensive publicity targeted at the upper end of the market attracting visitors from afar as America and all over Britain.