Goldfinger owned it. Daniel Craig was shot on its steps. And now, the golf clubhouse at south Bucks golf course Stoke Park has been named the fifth most iconic clubhouse in world golf.

Golf.com published its list of the ’18 most iconic clubhouses in golf’, with Stoke Park’s named number five – and number one in England.

The 18th century building was beaten only by The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and three US-based clubhouses, including the famous Augusta National.

Stoke Park’s Georgian mansion was described by the legendary golf writer Bernard Darwin, in 1910, as “a gorgeous palace, a dazzling vision of white stone, of steps and terraces and cupolas…”

It was designed by James Wyatt, a member of the Royal Academy, who, in 1772, at the age of 26, found himself as the country’s most fashionable architect, after designing the Pantheon in London’s Oxford Street.

The current director of golf at Stoke Park, Stuart Collier, said: “It is a real honour for us to be recognised in this way as the most iconic clubhouse in England and number five in the world.

“And it is great testament to the work undertaken on the building by the King family since they took possession in 1993, when it was unrecognisable from its current glory.

“What’s interesting about Stoke Park’s inclusion in the top five is that, unlike the other four, it’s very easy to become a member here.”

Wyatt was commissioned to design Stoke Park’s striking ‘palace’ by then resident of the estate John Penn, grandson of William Penn Jnr, who founded Pennsylvania, in the USA.

Work began on the building in 1789, at a location suggested previously to Penn’s forebears by, among others, the great landscape designer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, who had laid out the estate’s parkland in 1750.

And it has provided the milieu for any number of movies made by nearby Pinewood Studios, including the 1964 James Bond classic Goldfinger, the 2004 crime thriller Layer Cake, which starred Daniel Craig, and the 2001 romantic comedy Bridget Jones’s Diary.