The Golf Hotel and the 'Tolly Follies'
Standing on the outer reaches of Foxhall Road is one of a
collection of 1920s/1930s 'Tolly
Follies': large, mock-baronial,
eyecatcher public houses for Tollemache brewery. For many years we
believed that these structures were designed by the Ipswich architect
John Shewell Corder
to emmulate the style of Helmingham Hall*, home of the Tollemache
family,
located around ten miles to the north of Ipswich. However, those
examples which are on the National Heritage List for England are
attributed to Cautley & Barefoot, also a local architectural
practice with
premises in Cornhill Chambers in The Walk.
Tolly Follies
The Golf Hotel, 748 Foxhall Road (scroll down).
Image by John Norman
The Haven (image above), 346 Felixstowe Road – much later
renamed The Crown, then
converted into flats. Not currently Listed.
Images by John Norman
The Golden Hind' (upper image above) 470 Nacton Road. The Grade
II Listing text attributes this public house to Cautley and Barefoot of
Ipswich for Tollemache Brewery, 1936.
The Cricketers (lower image above)–
once the Town House – 51 Crown Street. Not
currently Listed. See
our page on Public clocks in Ipswich for a
2018 view of The Cricketers and its clock.
Images by John Norman
The
Waveney Arms on Bramford Road (upper image above)
closed in 1994 and stood empty for a
number of years, before being shamefully demolished for housing.
The
Safe Harbour (lower image above), which stood on the corner of
Highfield & Meredith
Roads on the Whitton estate, closed for business in 1995 & was
(ditto) demolished two years later.
[The five photographs shown above were found in the papers of the late
John Norman.]
The Suffolk Punch, 3 Deben Road (corner with Norwich
Road). The Grade II Listing text attributes this
public house to Cautley and Barefoot of Ipswich for Tollemache Brewery,
1936-7.
The Golden Hind (above) in Cambridge is the
only Tolly Folly outside of Ipswich; it has been described as the twin
of The Golden Hind
in Nacton Road, Ipswich.
N.B. Some sources quote the following as Tolly Follies:
The Margaret Catchpole, Listed Grade II*, on Cliff Lane, a large
public house built in 1936 designed by Harold Ridley Hooper of Ipswich,
for the Cobbold Brewery; intended as a rival to the Tolly Folies. By
the look of the frontage, the same could be said of:
The
Royal George at the junction on Colchester Road (the last named two are
substantial buildings but lack the mock-grandeur of the Tolly Follies).
(*Helmingham Hall is a moated manor house in Helmingham, north
of Ipswich. It was begun by John Tollemache in 1480 and has been owned
by the Tollemache family ever since. The house is built around a
courtyard in typical late medieval/Tudor style. It is not open to the
public, although the grounds are.)
The Golf Hotel
2017 images
The frontage on Foxhall Road bears, above the main entrance, a
stepped panel bearing the decorative, incised words:
'THE
GOLF
HOTEL'
Above: the panel is repeated quite high up on a chimney breast
above the west side entrance – much sharper in the spring sunshine on
this elevation. Not currently Listed.
Inside the building the vintage golf imagery which once
decorated the walls has largely gone, to be replaced by 'olde worlde'
framed prints including this hammed-up version of the Borough coat of arms. The odd, asymmetrical red
adornments above the coat of arms enclose an exclamation mark, for some
reason. It is as if the upper lion is astonished to
find himself holding a galleon – as well he might be. This is taken
from
the "Ja-Ja" Heraldic Series.
2017 image
Heraldic postcards
(and presumably larger prints, as shown above) for authorities all over
the country, using the trade mark
"Ja-Ja", were issued by Stoddart & Co, Halifax, West Yorkshire,
England. The company was established in 1905, but had ceased publishing
postcards by 1917.
Although there is now doubt about his connection to the 'Tolly
Follies', it is worth noting that Ipswich architect John Shewell Corder
is commemorated on a
plaque in Tooley's & Smart's Almshouses
courtyard
garden. He was the architect of the Scarborow shop in Dial Lane. He was a
prolific illustrator of Ipswich architecture and street scenes: The Corner Posts of Ipswich (1890)
and Christchurch or Withepole House:
A Brief Memorial (1893) – the latter quoted on our page about
the Withypoll memorials. He was
a man who loved his home town and, architecturally, left his mark on
Ipswich.
See also our Pubs &
off-licences page.
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