Ben Pauling upsets the locals and Carl LLewellyn

How racing trainer ‘ruined’ Cotswolds golf club – with crèche and a fire
Mutiny in the air among Cotswold community after Ben Pauling bought much loved Naunton Downs in cut-price purchase with holes halved and honours board burned
From left: Pauling and Redknapp
From left: Pauling and Redknapp
David Walsh
Saturday April 06 2024, 6.00pm BST, The Times
Alittle after midday on a midweek afternoon five men stand at the bar of The Black Horse in Naunton. They order drinks and sit at a wooden table. This isn’t their first time in The Black Horse. Their chat with the landlord is easy and familiar. Once their own conversation begins, it’s clear they have things to get off their chests.
Twelve miles east of Cheltenham, six miles west of Stow-on-the-Wold, Naunton sits by the River Windrush in the heart of the Cotswolds. Old stone houses, the lordly and ancient church of St Andrew’s, and fewer than 400 people. “Great place to live,” says a local man of the village, “pretty, but not chocolate-box pretty.”
At their table, the men try to keep their voices down. But around here, whispers travel far. “I didn’t believe a word he was saying,” says one of the men. “Not a word,” says the man nearest to him. “If you lose a local facility, the whole community suffers,” says a third.
“I thought he was very affable, I felt he came across well in the meeting. Believable, but I just didn’t believe him,” says another. The fifth then threw in his tuppence worth: “I emailed him six months ago to ask ‘What’s going on?’ I never got a response. You end up thinking it’s something fishy.”
I walk over to their table, tell them it was impossible not to overhear and ask if they would like to tell the full story?
Sale with strings attached
Five years ago Ian Wilson, the principal owner of Naunton Downs Golf Club, decided to sell up. He had developed the golf course in the early 1990s and got Peter Scudamore, then the champion jockey, to officially open it in the spring of 1993. The course sat on a tract of elevated ground south of the village in an area of outstanding natural beauty. People were excited.
Anyone wishing to join a golf club in the Cotswolds at this time went on a waiting list and without much enthusiasm for hanging around, Wilson decided to build his own. To help turn his land into a golf course, he invited local people to buy debentures in the planned new club. Costing £4,500 each, the debentures came with the right to play golf on the course for 50 years. One hundred debentures were offered. All were taken.
The entire venture was a success. As golf clubs so often are, Naunton Downs was loved by its members and attracted plenty of societies and visitors wishing to play the course. Stow Rugby Club, Gloucestershire Police, the Rotary and Cheltenham Town Football Club all had their golf days at Naunton. Few make fortunes running golf clubs but Naunton turned a profit most years and locals liked having a nice golf course on their doorstep.
After 25 years, Wilson and three minority owners put the club on the market. With an impressive clubhouse and circa 155 acres of good land, the golf club had much to recommend it. But for any prospective buyer, the existence of 100 debenture holders with the right to play the course until 2043 was a problem. For this meant a sizeable percentage of members would not be paying annual subscriptions. As well as that, the £460,000 loan from the debenture holders would become due in 2043.
Initially there were a number of potential buyers but towards the end of 2019, only the racehorse trainer Ben Pauling and his wife Sophie had come up with an acceptable offer. Pauling had been training from a leased yard at nearby Bourton-on-the-Water and his plan was to move his training centre from there to Naunton Downs Golf Club, where his operation would co-exist with the golf club.
Members believe Naunton Downs, with its impressive clubhouse, shown above, has suffered since Pauling took on the ownership
Members believe Naunton Downs, with its impressive clubhouse, shown above, has suffered since Pauling took on the ownership
There are different estimates of the price paid by the trainer but most suggest it was somewhere between £1.1 million and £1.3 million. If this seems extraordinary value for a nice golf course with an exceptional clubhouse in the Cotswolds, it is important to remember the strings attached. As well as the 100 debenture holders, there was also an outstanding £500,000 loan owing to Barclays Bank.
For Pauling, then an ambitious 36-year-old trainer, it was everything he wanted. Being able to train on land that he owned, to build his own gallops, to design his own barns, he could now have the career he’d sought. “If you are going to dream, dream big,” he said in an interview that appeared on the website ofThe Cotswolds Gentleman.
The sale was completed in the spring of 2020. Soon there was a meeting at the clubhouse at which the new owner spoke to members. What they recall him saying is that he was going to turn Naunton Downs into the best 18-hole golf course in Gloucestershire and that he believed his training of race horses could happily co-exist with the golf club.
At first, there was optimism among the golf members. More money was spent on the maintenance of the golf course. The greens were improved. More than £80,000 was spent on machinery, the greenkeeping team was increased to four and more than £100,000 was spent on brightening up the clubhouse.
Through the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, golf was less affected by the restrictions than other sports and enjoyed a surge in popularity. Initially, Naunton Downs increased its membership. Soon that would change.
Before moving his string from Bourton-on-the-Water, Pauling had to adapt the golf course and its surrounds to meet his needs as a racehorse trainer. He built two barns in that corner of the course where the 15th and 16th had been while keeping the members happy by building two new holes and maintaining the integrity of an 18-hole course.
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The trainer also needed a new all-weather gallop that ran through the middle of the golf course but without needing any significant alteration to it. Some members didn’t care for having racehorses exercise on their golf course, others liked it. Most just got on with it. As for the loss of the 15th and 16th, both par fours, and the creation of two new par threes, the majority view was that the 15th and 16th tended to get soggy in winter, so this wasn’t the end of the world. But things changed.
At the end of the 2021-22 golf year at Naunton Downs, the golf club lost 164 members while adding only 38. That meant a loss of almost £80,000 in revenue for the following year. Pauling and his wife, Sophie, believed the way forward was to give Naunton Downs a more exclusive feel. There was a piece in Tatler magazine that ran under the headline: “Inside Naunton Downs: racing’s answer to Soho House.”
The Paulings partnered with Fitzdares, a posh London-based club that introduces itself thus: “The worlds of luxury and sport rarely intertwine, a tragedy we must rewrite.” The restaurant in the clubhouse became The Fitzdares Room.Tatler spoke to Will Woodhams, the Fitzdares chief executive officer, about the company’s second home in the country. “It’s incredible that we’ve found a new home in the most beautiful part of the Cotswolds. A morning on the gallops, breakfast, a quick round of golf, a long lunch and an afternoon of sport on the box — it’s a little slice of Mayfair in the most bucolic location, truly a sports nut’s dream,” he said.
This wasn’t exactly how members of Naunton Downs saw it. From where they stood, this was the beginning of a nightmare. As the clubhouse was upgraded, golf was downgraded. Honours boards that had hung on the wall for three decades were removed, the same happened to photos of past captains, and all trophies were removed from the trophy cabinet.
Naunton Downs Golf Club has lost members and revenue since Pauling took it over despite original pledges to turn it into Gloucestershire’s finest golf course
Naunton Downs Golf Club has lost members and revenue since Pauling took it over despite original pledges to turn it into Gloucestershire’s finest golf course
ALAMY
Though the bar and the Fitzdares Room were bright and smartly decorated, there was nothing in either room that spoke of golf. Some early enthusiasm for the fine dining offered in the Fitzdares Room soon waned and it never held much attraction for the golfers looking for nothing more than a club sandwich after playing their round. An upmarket shop selling ladies’ dresses and assorted luxury items opened at the clubhouse. Members could see it was there but no one recalls seeing anyone shop there.
Stranger things happened. The ladies’ changing room was turned into a crèche and the men’s changing room divided in two; three quarters for the men, one quarter for the women. The ladies called it “the cubby hole”. They hated it. The crèche and luxury shop would soon close. Then in November 2022, club pro Nick Ellis left. He’d worked at the club from the day it opened and was loved by the members.
Before he left, the members had a going-away competition in honour of their pro. On the 4th hole that day, he made a hole in one. Cost him £250 in the bar. They laughed that evening but that wasn’t really how they felt. Things must be bad, members said, if Nick is walking away.
At some point a video of the club’s honours boards being burned appeared online. It passed from one member to another until everyone had seen it. Why, they wondered, would anyone do that? And then, on December 30, 2022, there was a notice from the owners to the members explaining that from October 1, 2023 the club would be reduced from an 18-hole to a nine-hole course.
There had been no prior consultation with the members, no meetings with the debenture holders to ask if they felt their £4,500 contributions to the development of the golf course entitled them to play an 18-hole golf course. For most of them, that is what they believed. Pauling would say that the club was no longer financially viable as an 18-hole golf course and the members would say it was viable for the 27 years before he bought it.
At first the debenture holders weren’t sure there was much they could do. Many are elderly and the thought of legally challenging something they believed was unjust didn’t appeal to them. Too expensive and too drawn out. But they talked at the golf club, down in The Black Horse and wherever they met. The more they discussed the situation, the more they felt wronged.
Last year they formed an action group. They needed to create a kitty to fund a legal action against the Paulings. Most agreed to contribute what they could. First offering, they raised £150,000. Last October, they issued legal proceedings against the Paulings to assert the rights of debenture holders to play on all of the land at Naunton Downs Golf Club.
The action progresses slowly. Right now, both parties have been asked by the court to engage in resolution talks. Pauling is adamant that the future for Naunton Downs is as a nine-hole course, the debenture holders and members say it has to be returned to 18 holes. No one sees a simple way out of this.
‘No one wants nine holes’
On March 20 and 21, a series of meetings took place at the clubhouse. Pauling was flanked by executives from the Wigley Group, a property development company with whom he has set up a joint venture. James Davies, the chief executive officer, was there, so too James Ellerington, the chief operating officer, and Claire Lynch, the chief governance officer.
They met small groups of Naunton Downs debenture holders, members and former members. There were many apologies from Pauling and the Wigley people about the lack of communication, the burning of the honours boards and the changes to the ladies’ changing room but no agreement that the golf needed to be on an 18-hole course. On the question of the rights of the debenture holders, Pauling and the Wrigley Group contended that this was now a legal matter and couldn’t be discussed.
The men sitting in The Black Horse have come from their meeting and are now unloading. I speak to them in turn. Harry Acland is a local farmer. There are four debentures in his family; he was at the meeting to represent his 86-year-old mother who is a debenture holder and, through racing, considers Pauling a friend.
“I told Ben you took over an 18-hole golf course and said you would develop it into one of the best courses in Gloucester and that we are not backing down on this,” he says. “We know an 18-hole course works, financially it works. It was all very cordial. This is not about money, this is about having a community asset. We will fight it. He is not a bad guy, we want to work with him, we’re not saying ‘bugger off’. We supported his plans for the barns, for the gallop, but he’s got to make his operation co-exist with an 18-hole golf course.”
Mike Parry is an octogenarian. More a landowner than a farmer, he says, he has lived in the Cotswolds for 35 years. His land borders about 70 per cent of the golf course. He admits to no admiration for Pauling, telling a story about a small parcel of land (approximately two acres) he sold to his neighbour.
“I never wanted to sell, but he kept upping his offer to the point where it was absurd and my adviser was telling me to sell,” he says. “Ben Pauling told me he wanted those two acres as a collection area for his horses. I felt sorry for him in the end and sold. I later saw plans for where he’s going to build his private residence and then understood why he wanted that land.”
Stephen Bajdala-Brown joined Naunton Downs Golf Club six months after it opened, paying £4,500 for his debenture in 1993. “I am a big believer in community, I am a believer in giving to the community rather than taking from it. From the moment the club changed ownership in 2020, I could tell this giving to the community was not going to happen. So I found another club, joined Cotswold Hills. I do feel I have been proven right, but I’m very sad about that. Going from 18 to nine holes ruined the golf club. Everyone who is a half-decent player will leave and join another club.”
Redknapp, right, and jockey Ben Jones celebrate Cheltenham success last month for Shakem Up’Arry, the horse trained by Pauling
Redknapp, right, and jockey Ben Jones celebrate Cheltenham success last month for Shakem Up’Arry, the horse trained by Pauling
HARRY MURPHY/SPORTSFILE
Though he played a lot of golf with Bajdala-Brown and understood his reasons for leaving, Leigh Yates couldn’t bring himself to do the same. He’s stuck it out. “When I played football and cricket, it was the team thing. It wasn’t just about the game, it was being with people you liked, people who made you laugh. I never thought I would get that on a golf course, but I got it at Naunton Downs.
“It was a new course, everyone was coming in at the same time, we all gelled together, and we created friendships that lasted for 30 years. Those friends are now dispersed all over the county in other golf clubs. It’s just so disappointing.” Saying this, Yates becomes emotional.
Nic Hayward remembers persuading his wife that the £4,500 debenture was a good investment. She knew that, really, he just wanted to play golf. He felt then and still feels that what he bought at that time entitled him to membership of an 18-hole golf course for 50 years.
“They know they bought the golf club at a discounted price because there were 100 debenture holders who had rights,” he says. “They seem to have ignored all of that and carried on as if the land was freehold and they can do what they want with it.” Hayward’s sons, Gus and Archie, joined the club last year. He’s not sure they’ll commit to a second year. “No one wants a nine-hole course.”
The fight goes on
After the men leave The Black Horse, another introduces himself. He then says he would prefer if his name wasn’t mentioned. His is the air of an elder, a man who lives and breathes the village, who has been an off-and-on member of the golf club and through his love of National Hunt racing has gotten to know Pauling. He considers Ben a friend. Only a week before he’d enjoyed a celebratory drink at the Farmer’s Arms in Guiting Power with the trainer after Shakem Up’Arry, the horse Pauling trains for Harry Redknapp, had won at the Cheltenham Festival.
“I said to Ben, ‘This business at the golf club is not going to end well for you. You think you’ve got a problem with the action group, well you’re going to have a bigger problem with the village people.’” This man then lowers his voice a little and says there are lot of very bright people in the village, including a high-powered lawyer, and they are aligned with the golf club members.
Carl Llewellyn is a former jump jockey. Twenty-six years ago, he won the Grand National for a second time, riding Earth Summit to victory. That horse was trained here in Naunton by Llewellyn’s friend Nigel Twiston-Davies. Llewellyn once thought of Pauling as a mate but he’s not sure now. Llewellyn, you see, is a debenture holder at Naunton Downs.
“I can totally understand Ben wanting his own place,” he says. “It’s what every young trainer would want and he’s having a great season. What I don’t understand is why he didn’t buy land that was unencumbered, land that he could develop in in any way he liked. But that’s not what he bought.”
I speak to a former lady captain at Naunton Downs. She says that on September 27 last year, five days before the club was reduced to nine holes, the Naunton Down ladies section had their last competition on the course. “We had seen what had happened to our changing room,” she says. “All the honours boards removed and still on that Wednesday, many of us were sobbing as we walked down the 18th fairway for the last time.
“So many good times but when the course went to nine holes, there was a mass exodus. Over 30 of us left, some to Lilley Brook, others to Cirencester, Cotswold Hills, Broadway, Feldon Valley, Brickhampton Court. I never felt the owners understood or even liked golf.”
Neither Pauling nor Robert Wigley nor Wigley Group CEO James Davies responded to emails seeking their side of this story.
According to those working for the restoration of an 18-hole golf course at Naunton Downs, the fight goes on. Debenture holder Bajdala-Brown jumped ship five years ago and hasn’t played the course since. When he heard about the legal fund, he wanted to contribute. “I exceeded what I intended to put in,” he said. “I believe in fighting wrongs.
“We knew Ben was going to do things that would impact on the golf course, it was how far those things went. If you come and give my wife a peck on the cheek, that’s fine. If you kiss her on the lips, I start to worry. If you do other things, we have a problem. And that’s what happened at the golf club. We have a problem.”
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