South Beds Golf Club

South Beds Golf Club's nine-hole course, playing to a par of 32, is set on the chalk downland above Luton, where the Chiltern escarpment rises on the town's northern side. Luton sits in a gap in this chalk ridge cut by the River Lea, and the higher ground immediately around the town has long been left as downland and grazing rather than built over, giving courses in this LU2 postcode area a markedly hillier character than the flatter Bedfordshire countryside further north. The town itself grew rapidly through the twentieth century around its airport, car manufacturing and hat-making industries, but the downland fringe to the north-east has kept much of its open, undeveloped character despite the town's expansion. This chalk terrain, shared with the Dunstable Downs a few miles to the west, tends to drain quickly after rain, a feature typical of the Chiltern escarpment as it crosses this part of Bedfordshire on its way towards Hertfordshire.