Muirfield Road

The name

Muirfield Road takes its name from Muirfield (The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers). Its members wrote the original Rules of golf in 1744, and the 1892 Open here was the first played over 72 holes.

Club dates: 1744 (club records), Muirfield course 1891.

Where the club's facts come from: The Club - Muirfield, the club's own history.

How sure we are of the match: Strong

The estate's streets were named after golf courses. The streets page explains how each match was made.

In the story

• Building the Estate: The plan
  No trunk road was ever built, but a strip of land between Muirfield Road and Ashridge Drive was kept clear for a main road for about thirty years, until the early 1980s (see Change and renewal).
• Life on the Estate: Churches
  Within about ten years five congregations had buildings of their own: the Baptists in Gosforth Lane, the Methodists in Prestwick Road, All Saints beside the chapel and St Martin's in Muirfield Road, all of about 1953, and the Catholics, who used St Joseph's hall until their church on Oxhey Drive was built in 1960, or 1961 by one account.
• Churches: St Martin's, Muirfield Road
  St Martin's, a Presbyterian church that became United Reformed in 1972, was built in Muirfield Road in the early 1950s, and an extra wing was added to it later.
• St Martin's Church, Muirfield Road
  Built on Muirfield Road in the early 1950s, St Martin's was home for many years to Brownies, Cubs, Guides, Scouts, the Boys' Brigade and youth clubs.
• Change and renewal: The road that was never built
  An open strip between Muirfield Road and Ashridge Drive, already clear on early aerial photographs of the estate, was kept for an orbital route that Our Oxhey identifies as Ringway 3.
• The playing fields: Sport and play on the fields
  A player who joined at fifteen in 1957 thinks the cricket club started on a concrete strip covered with matting near Muirfield Road before it moved to the old course, though he says he may be misremembering.

On the timeline

• August 1983 Three Rivers approves Ashridge Park, 75 low-cost homes between Muirfield Road and Ashridge Drive on land once kept for a main road.
• 1989 The first St Martin's church in Muirfield Road is replaced, and the site takes both the new church and the houses of St Martins Close.

Close by

Buildings

• Oxhey Woods Local Nature Reserve 40 m
• St Martin's Church, Muirfield Road 90 m
• Clarendon School (site) 250 m
• St Joseph's Catholic Church 400 m
• Greenfields Primary School 400 m

Ancient woods

• Oxhey Woods, central part (Ashen Spring) 40 m
• Oxhey Woods, central part (Beck Mason's Wood) 330 m
• Oxhey Woods, southern part (Abbott's Wood and Nanscot Wood) 410 m

Walk stops

• St Joseph's 400 m
  Schools, churches and shops walk
• The Dick Whittington 460 m
  Schools, churches and shops walk
• Park Pond and Pond Wood 480 m
  Farms and lost houses walk

Distances are in a straight line from a point on the street.