As the golfing world prepares to focus on the Ryder Cup, which takes place from September 23-28, the cathedral city of St Albans, and the birthplace of the world's most famous golf competition, is urging visitors to follow in the footsteps of the Cup's founder by taking part in the dedicated Samuel Ryder Trail that visits all of the important places in the golfing pioneer's life.
 

Ryder was a resident of St Albans and set up his successful seed and mail-order business in the city in 1895. The seed business was housed in a purpose-built Exhibition Hall on Holywell Hill in the city centre.
 

The building is a beautiful Art Deco construction with stained-glass roof and windows so visitors could see flowers beds with plants grown Ryder's Seeds; today, the building is exactly as it was more than 100 years ago, but is now home to Cafe Rouge. 
 

His head office, specifically constructed for his business with the front carved reliefs of sowers and reapers, was squeezed in between the Exhibition Hall and the 15th-century White Hart Hotel.

It's a magnificent building, which today is a tastefully-restored boutique hotel, called the Clarion Collection which plays to its heritage with the Samuel Ryder Bar and Ryder Restaurant.

The trail, which was put together by the Samuel Ryder Foundation, also visits Verulam Golf Course, where Ryder first played golf and came up with the idea for the Ryder Cup, the Old Meeting House where his business first began, the churches at which he worshipped, the old town hall where he was elected Mayor and the cemetery where he is buried.

For more information about the Samuel Ryder Trail which takes two hours to complete, go to enjoystalbans.com

To stay in Samuel Ryder's 19th-century head office, now the Clarion Collection boutique hotel, go to stalbanshotel.com. Rates start at £92 per room with breakfast 

As well as being the birthplace of the Ryder Cup, the city of St Albans claims a number of firsts and oldests, including:

• Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in the city's Verulamium Park, the oldest pub in Britain, according to the Guinness Book of Records;
• The 11th-century St Albans Cathedral is the oldest place of continual Christian worship in the UK, and has the longest nave of any Cathedral, including St Paul's and Westminster Abbey;
• The city is named after Britain's first Saint, Alban, who was executed at the site of the 11th-century Cathedral. 
• St Albans Abbey (now Cathedral) was at one time the principal Abbey in England and was the location of the first meeting (in 1213) which ultimately led to the sealing of the Magna Carta (in 1215). 
• The city is home to the Roman Theatre of Verulamium. Built around 140AD, it is the oldest and only surviving example of its kind in Britain as it was a theatre with a stage rather than an amphitheatre. 
• St Albans has the oldest working medieval clock tower in the country built between 1403 and 1412. The tower is located in the square where the first battle of the Wars of the Roses took place in 1455.
• The city also has the oldest public school in Britain where Pope Adrian IV, the only Englishman to occupy the papal chair, and scientist Stephen Hawking were educated. 
• St Albans has more pubs per square mile than any other town in the country
• The city has one of the oldest regular street markets in the UK, dating back to the 9th Century,