Golf at Cammo
Cramond Brig Golf Club
In 1908 the Cramond Brig Golf Club leased land in Cammo Estate for the development of an 18 hole golf course, opened in July 1909. The course included the areas now known as South Field, Home Field, North Field and West Field. ​​​​
The club started with 350 members, rising to 700 in the early 1920s. In June 1912 the club hosted a “Professional Tournament” that included many leading players who had come to Scotland for the Open Championship at Muirfield.
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In 1929 the 21-year lease of the land at Cammo was not renewed, due to an argument between Mrs Maitland-Tennent and the golf club over the building of a perimeter wall, and the golf club departed to a new site at Dalmahoy. The golf course was turned over to pasture.
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Golf Club House
In 1909, a feu charter, in favour of the golf club, leased half an acre of ground for the building of a clubhouse. A stipulation of the lease agreement was that the clubhouse should cost not less than £1,000. In 1910 the golf club constructed the clubhouse on the eastern edge of the estate, adjacent to Cammo Road.
When the golf club left Cammo, the clubhouse was purchased by Mrs Maitland-Tennent, but was left uninhabited and neglected for many years. In 1940, Cammo House was requisitioned by the Air Ministry, and the Maitland-Tennents took up residence in the uninhabited golf clubhouse, which became known as Cammo Lodge. In 1946, the Air Ministry relinquished Cammo House, the Maitland-Tennents returned to their family seat, and the golf clubhouse became uninhabited once again.
In 1952 Cammo Lodge and the former golf course land were given as a tenancy to local farmer Neil Little, by a verbal agreement with Mrs Maitland-Tennent. At this time the former golf clubhouse was converted into a farmhouse, the land was put to agricultural use, and the whole unit was known as Cammo Lodge Farm. From 1955 onwards, the farmhouse and lands became known as Cammo Home Farm.
Remains
All that remains of the golf course is the overgrown 6th tee rising above the path in the north-west corner of the Estate, and two rollers.
For more about the history of Cramond Brig Golf Club see:
www.forgottengreens.com/forgotten-greens/mid-lothian-balerno/cramond-brig-edinburgh/
A few years earlier, in 1897, there had been another proposal for a golf course at Cammo, based at Barnton Hotel, which came to nothing. See
www.forgottengreens.com/what-might-have-been/midlothian-barnton-hotel/