The former Bramcote Tennis Pavilion

Summary

Lawn tennis pavilion designed by John Hall and built in an Arts and Crafts Tudor Revival style in 1885.

Reasons for Designation

The former Bramcote Tennis Pavilion, a sports pavilion built 1885, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its complex design, intricate roof and half-timbered principal elevation, producing a charming Arts and Crafts influenced building of considerable visual appeal;

* as a particularly good example of the bungalow-with-veranda form of sports building which epitomised the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

Historic interest:

* as a very early and rare surviving purpose-built lawn tennis pavilion dating to the earliest days of the modern sport, and therefore one of the earliest surviving lawn tennis buildings in the world;

* including changing rooms for both sexes, the building illustrates a particularly significant social historical aspect of the sport.

History

The modern game of tennis developed in England in the 1860-1870s; known as lawn tennis to set it apart from the far older indoor sport which is now known as real or royal tennis. The first lawn tennis championship was held in 1877 at the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, having only been introduced to the club two years previously. In 1878 a tennis club was formed in Scarborough at the cricket club, with a rival club established soon after which in 1884 became the North of England Lawn Tennis Club, which opened its own premises on 1st June 1885. The pavilion was designed by the local architect John Hall and was described in newspaper reports in July and August 1885 as having changing facilities for both men and women, along with an office and kitchen. The club held nine annual competitions from 1884, but in 1894 was reported to have been wound up. In 1901 the pavilion with its grounds was leased to Bramcote School as a recreation ground. It is thought to be little altered from its original design, the architect’s plans being held at the North Yorkshire County Record Office.

Scarborough continued as an important centre for tennis into the C20. The club established at the cricket ground acquired its own club house in 1912 designed by Sir Edwin Cooper, who was a former student and partner of John Hall, the architect of the Bramcote Pavilion.

Details

Sports pavilion, 1885 by John Hall for the North of England Lawn Tennis Club. Arts and Crafts Tudor Revival style.

MATERIALS: half-timbered with rendered brick infill to the forward elevations, red brick in English Garden Wall Bond to the rear. Roofing of small, plain, red clay tiles with mitred hips and terracotta cresting.

PLAN: a central, square hall, open as a veranda to the south with a changing room for gentlemen to the east and a bow-fronted changing room for ladies to the west. To the rear there is a kitchen and a larger club room or office. Toilets are to the rear of both changing rooms. To the north east there is an attached outbuilding.

EXTERIOR: single-storey with a partial attic. Although the building is relatively small, it has a complex form resulting in every elevation being asymmetric. The main roof ridge is aligned east-west, forming hips with the roofs of the dressing rooms, which project south from either end: that over the ladies’ changing room forms an apse to the south; that over the gentlemen’s changing room is a broader gable with an attic window, the gable projecting southwards to form an eastwards continuation of the central veranda. The east-west ridge extends east to form an attic roof dormer on the east slope of the gentlemen’s changing room. Extending to the north of the main roof there is a lower, hipped roof over the kitchen and office with a tall chimney rising from its west side. To the east there is the lean-to roof over the attached outbuilding, this roof forming a lower-pitched catslide from the main roof. The various roof hips are finished with mitred tiles; valleys are also tiled. The ridges are terracotta with perforated cresting. The chimney is brick-built with a degree of elaboration with a cornice and projecting banding.

The changing rooms are half-timbered, set on a brick plinth. The timbering is close studded with a high-set mid-rail and twinned, straight down-braces. The panels are rendered over brickwork and the windows are mullioned with leaded lights. The posts forming the front of the veranda have high set curved braces. One post is omitted from the central veranda to form the entrance to the pavilion, this being reached via a flight of external steps. The rear of the building is simpler, being brick-built with cambered brick arched openings, the windows having projecting sills and plate glass sashes.

INTERIOR: not inspected, but reported to be little altered.

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