Hurly burly hits the Hurlingham
Exclusive club where Charlotte has her tennis lessons is rocked by hacking row
A BITTER war has broken out on the leafy lawns of the Hurlingham, the West London club where Prince George and Princess Charlotte have tennis lessons.
Set in 42 acres and with a 25-year waiting list to become a member, the Thamesside club near Parsons Green, Fulham, is one of the most exclusive in the world.
But the tranquil setting has been rocked by accusations of skulduggery and cyber warfare over the £27 million redevelopment of the club’s Grade II-listed West Wing. The management has even been accused of hiring private investigators to identify a cabal of anonymous critics attacking the changes.
One angry member told The Mail on Sunday that the plans, which feature a swimming pool, cafe, sports bar and fitness studios over three floors and have been approved in a referendum of members, ‘look like Heathrow Terminal 5 has been plonked i n the middle of Parsons Green. It’s more like a David Lloyd club in Essex’.
The battle for the heart of the club, which has the Duke of Edinburgh as its patron and counts former Cabinet Ministers Lord Fowler and Lord Archer among its 13,000 members, is said to be between ‘new money and old’.
The row has been compared to the ‘ Wentworth Revolt’ where new ThaiChinese owners tried to hike membership fees to make the famous Berkshire golf club more exclusive.
In the case of the Hurlingham, where members pay at least £1,500 a year, the campaign against the changes is being waged through a website called Reform at Hurlingham, run by someone using the pseudonym ‘Bernie Boverill’.
Contributors to the site claim the Hurlingham has spent ‘thousands’ on private investigations firm K2 in an attempt to identify anonymous protesters. They also claim someone hacked a reformer committee member’s personal email account for the same purpose.
‘Bernie Boverill’ derides club chairman Julian Holloway as ‘Google Eyes’ and ‘Bully Boy’ on the website and has posted a photo of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un alongside the caption ‘Hurlingham’s most unpopular chairman’.
The club, which earlier this month hosted the Conservatives Summer Party, did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. But in its most recent accounts and annual report, which reveal pre-tax losses of £171,000, Mr Holloway acknowl- edges opposition to the redevelopment of the West Wing. He writes: ‘There are members who have opposed the project and continue to do so ... No doubt there will be mutterings of the club isn’t like it used to be. But that is the whole point. Times and people change.
‘We needn’t fear it, but we do need to adapt. I think it is apt that by next year, our 150th anniversary year and my last as chairman, we will be on the road to forming our own version of a modern private members’ club.’
A spokesman for K2 said: ‘We never comment on client engagements and we never engage in illegal activities in the cybersphere or any other.’
‘It looks like Terminal 5 plonked in Parsons Green’