Herts & Essex (Now An 18 Hole Course)

Royston sits on the chalk uplands where Cambridgeshire meets Hertfordshire, a stretch of open, rolling country that has shaped golf in this part of England for well over a century. The town itself straddles the Icknield Way, one of Britain's oldest trackways, and the landscape here — wide skies, exposed ridgelines, firm turf over chalk — has more in common with the downland courses of southern England than the parkland layouts that dominate the East Anglian counties nearby.

The club's name — Herts & Essex — reflects the border-country character of this corner of the Home Counties, where county lines blur and communities have always drawn from a wide catchment. The parenthetical note that this is "now an 18-hole course" hints at a history of development and change, a layout that has grown into its current form over time rather than arriving fully formed.

Chalk-based downland golf tends to reward precision over power, with firm, fast-running conditions for much of the year and the kind of natural contours that make scoring deceptively difficult.