The Years After Closure
After the trio of clubs closed, things moved quite rapidly. The Atlantis building was first demolished, along with part of the Casino Club, and redevelopment work began on the site. A driving range was built along with the new health club building on the other side of the car park. The car park was renovated and the entire site tidied up. The remaining parts of the former Casino club was turned into a bar for the members of the health club.
The Virgin Group purchased Holmes Place who originally operated the gym, and the Co-Operative group that originally owned the site sold it off to a South African holdings company. Through all of this the original Woolston Hall remained, although it suffered from neglect.
In the period from closure in 2002 until 2007 at least 3 groups tried to use the building. Two of these plans attempted to turn it into a restaurant, however these fell though due to the large cost involved in stripping out the multi-level night club layout and developing a high class restaurant. Holmes Place also tried to turn it into a conferencing/banqueting facility, but the planning permission for this plan was rejected.
The building remains on the listed building register, and as such any alteration or major works will be very difficult to get passed.
In mid-2008 the owner of Wolston Hall golf Club finally purchased the building from the South African property company that owned the site at that time for an estimated £1 million pounds, a significant discount from the £2.5m asking price.
Read more about this topic: Epping Forest Country Club
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