In this series I'm taking the train one stop beyond the Greater London boundary, getting off and seeing what's there. Today that means Moor Park, one stop beyond Northwood on the Metropolitan line, a Hertfordshire halt which exists thanks to a golf club and is the only Underground station to serve a private residential estate. There's nothing ordinary about Moor Park.
John Betjeman summed up Moor Park perfectly in his seminal documentary Metro-land - a posh game of golf with a palatial clubhouse and a jobsworth gatekeeper restricting access to a plebby outsider. His duff tee shot was taken outside Moor Park Mansion, a Neo-Palladian pile built in the grounds of a Tudor palace called The More, hence the name. Prior to 1923 it was a true stately home, then Lord Leverhulme bought it and had the 18 hole course laid out across a hump of Capability Brown landscaping. If you fancy a round there's currently a waiting list for male members though not for women, or a hefty green fee for smartly dressed visitors. Alternatively volunteers from The Arts Society show groups round the mansion monthly, preceded by refreshments, though it's autumn now so not until next year. I've only ever followed the public footpath that crosses four fairways and that was unwelcoming enough.
But Moor Park isn't the golf club that earned the station, that was Sandy Lodge. This is the other side of the railway line and its creation was inspired by the sandy soil here which greatly appealed to links player J Francis Markes. Initially the Metropolitan Railway only deigned to give it a halt (Sandy Lodge), but then Lord Leverhulme sold them a lot of land for housing and so it gained a proper station (Moor Park & Sandy Lodge). The course still has its own exit, a lone staircase which emerges onto a footpath through woodland to emerge by the eighteenth green. The clubhouse is alongside, a rustic sprawl where the Captain parks at one end and the Lady Captain at the other. I would like to know how much the house across the road spends on topiary because their enormous hedges curve in absolutely pristine form, like someone popped out and strimmed them just this morning.
The station in its current form dates from 1961 when they four-platformed it. Many's the time my family switched to the fast trains to save a few precious minutes on the way up to London, but that tends not to work these days and the Marylebones haven't stopped here since 1993. The connecting subway is where many of the artworks from 2008's roundel centenary exhibition ended up, and judging by their faded state they show no sign of moving. The proper frontage is quite low key, like a sports pavilion with a slanted skylight, plus a looping drop-off zone where wives would once have released their stockbrokers. What you won't normally find is a single decker because private estates don't get public bus services, Moor Park never has, but here's a replacement bus for the tube that usually fills the gap.
Moor Park has a single brick-fronted parade of shops plus a separate chalet for an estate agent because property is king round here. Locals can enjoy a traditional butcher, a haute couture dress shop and a beauty lounge, plus two takeaways, a chemist and a post office. The Daily Mail takes top left position in the rack outside the newsagents, for what it's worth. The most important unit is the office of the estate management company, Moor Park (1958) Limited, whose influence can be felt on every street and on every sign across the neighbourhood. It's never just NO LITTER, it's always NO LITTER by order of Moor Park (1958) Ltd. This even stretches to the bays of parking spaces in front of the shops where Vehicles Must Clearly Display A Valid Green Moor Park Emblem In The Windscreen At All Times.
And what of the houses? Most are little mansions in themselves, detached very much the default, in cosy gabled style. When first put on the market in the 1920s they cost from £1000 to £3200 and were advertised as "blending utility of accommodation with attractiveness of elevation". Mains drainage, electric light and gas connections were all listed as plusses, as of course was the proximity to golf. Plots have never been permitted to be subdivided so the leafy avenues still feel spacious, almost timelocked, although a few modern palaces are scattered here and there. Nothing feels overly regimented, there being plenty of variety, and reassuringly nobody's locked behind the usual security gates because these are not permitted. Other rules firmly discourage all bonfires, forbid the use of solar panels if they can be seen from the roadway and prohibit the employment of professional gardeners between 1pm on Saturday and 8am on Monday. Parking is never a problem.
Pedestrians, however, are more of an afterthought. Moor Park (1958) Limited don't maintain pavements so residents are responsible for the verges in front of their houses and tend to prioritise their own driveways instead. Walking the streets thus can involve a lot of shingle and gravel underfoot, or indeed no path at all, the official advice then being to walk on the right side of the road. Drivers don't get it all their own way though, with a speed limit of 20mph imposed via ANPR cameras making calculations on entry and exit. These cameras have mostly taken the place of Metro-land's jobsworth border guards, but a liftable barrier remains in force at the western end of Sandy Lodge Road to deter cutters-through from Tolpits Lane or Rickmansworth. Here I spotted two security cars used for officious oversight, ready and waiting, both with the right to stop unauthorised vehicles not displaying that pesky green emblem and query the purpose of their visit.
As well as private golf courses and private housing the other major land use hereabouts is private schooling. Merchant Taylors' arrived in 1933 after four centuries in the City, attracted by the convenience of the Met line for ferrying in its pupils. Their establishment now covers 285 acres, most of which is covered by sports pitches as befits the ethos of a £8,922-a-term education. I see their first team thrashed us in the Cup at cricket last term so I hope we wreak appropriate revenge in the rugby next week. Their linked prep school is the other side of the railway, its pupils resplendent in their navy/tangerine striped blazers and blessed with a unique historical resource on site. This was the location of the aforementioned Manor of the More, a Tudor palace said to rival Hampton Court and where Catherine of Aragon lived after England's first divorce. Alas by 1598 it was all in ruins and now lies under a metre of imported topsoil beneath the school's outer sports pitches, so don't expect to see anything, even if you could see anything which you can't.
There are no parks in Moor Park because that would be an extravagance, but there is a long strip of sandy woodland alongside the railway line where dogs can be satisfactorily exercised. These trees also serve the not unimportant purpose of shielding the estate from passing trains, because it would never do for everyone else to know what was here. Moor Park is indeed easily ignored, and indeed necessarily avoided which is just the way the 1958 crew likes it. Were it not for the tube station it would be practically invisible, but then of course without that it wouldn't be here. "See how exclusive thine estate, Moor Park," as the Poet Laureate once said.
