“I thought it was a collapsed drain”: the sinkhole in a golf course exposes a lost winery | Manchester

A sinkhole that opened in a Manchester golf course has exposed a winery abandoned for more than a century.

The cellar, along with dozens of empty wine and port bottles, was discovered by a gardener who assumed the hole was nothing more than a collapsed drain.

The underground brick vault he came across would have been part of a historic country house that was demolished in the 19th century. Steve Hopkins, assistant greenmaster at Davyhulme Park Golf Club in Trafford, Greater Manchester, made the discovery.

“I’m the first person to walk into that room in over 100 years,” he said. “I was walking back to the green maintenance facility when I noticed a small sinkhole on the 13th tee, which is not unusual. At the time we thought it was a collapsed drain.

“So we thought it’s just a drain that needs to be dug, cleaned and repaired, but as we dug deeper and deeper, it just opened up beneath us.”

After using a small excavator, Hopkins found a door, which he was able to crawl through. Then he turned on his flashlight and saw a brick basement with a vaulted ceiling with dozens of empty blackened glass bottles among the rubble.

He found another entrance in the basement but it was blocked by debris.

The basement would have been part of Davyhulme Hall, which was demolished two decades before the arrival of the golf club. The room dates back to the 12th century and the reign of Henry II. It was the seat of a medieval English knight called John de Hulme.

The hall and surrounding properties were inherited in 1844 by Robert Henry Norreys, known locally as Squire Bob.

According to Davyhulme Golf Club, Norreys was a great sportsman and created a nine-hole golf course on the east side of the hall. He created his own private golf society along with a gentlemen’s clubhouse and a ladies’ clubhouse, said to have been the second oldest building of its kind in the world, after St Andrews.

After Norreys’ death in 1887, Davyhulme Hall was put up for sale, but no buyer came forward, leading to the demolition of the entire property. Davyhulme Golf Club was founded in 1911 and purchased land from the Davyhulme estate on which the golf course that exists today was built.

The 13th hole is known as “las Bodegas”, which suggests that its existence was known when the course was being built. Hopkins said there had been a lot of interest and suggestions about what should be done now with the basement, with some saying it should be opened up as a feature of the course.

On Facebook, the club said the basement had been sealed while it was decided what to do next. “The bottles have been removed for safekeeping while we work on their next chapter. Maybe they will make a nice display in the clubhouse – we’ll keep you posted!”