Sutton Churches wants to replace its ‘creaking’ 100-year-old clubhouse with a brand-new, sustainable building designed to serve generations of players to come
The clubhouse at Sutton Churches Tennis Club is a real time capsule. Dark wooden panelling showing past champions, club memorabilia, and a traditional peg-based rotation system – where each member has personalised their own – all convey an old-world charm.
Parts of the wooden structure are even said to date back 100 years. Its old age is even more conspicuous when viewed alongside the club’s modern tennis courts, which host throngs of “tennis-mad” members playing under the heat of the summer sun.
Despite its charm, the club’s members say it is no long fit for purpose, with some even predicting that it may soon collapse without a modern replacement. “It is a rickety, dilapidated, wooden building,” the club’s Honorary Secretary Andrew Foulkes said.
“The whole thing creaks under your feet. It’s only being kept alive by our own patch and mend.”
“At some point it is going to fall down,” fellow member Jackie Halls told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), gesturing to the holes in floorboards and weeds that had begun to make their way through the ceiling.
Both Andrew and Jackie now feel the building is stopping Sutton Churches from fulfilling its ambitions as a fast-growing community club. Set just off Gander Green Lane, the club has hundreds of members, from juniors taking part in sports camps and SEN sessions to over-65s enjoying walking tennis.
The club prides itself on being cheap and accessible, with many members not having played tennis before joining. “There is no sense you have to arrive at a certain calibre,” said Andrew.
“People have this perception of tennis as being quite a clique and expensive pastime, but we are saying no, it’s cheaper than the gym down the road.”
The club offers monthly memberships for £20, while all new starters get six hours of free coaching with the club coach, Jake.
The club was formed during the famed 1976 heatwave, when two teams playing on land owned by Sutton’s Trinity and Baptist Churches joined forces. According to Andrew, the club entered the new millennium with around 100 members in 2001. Its total membership now stands at 532, including 290 juniors.
Members believe much of this growth can be attributed to the club’s transformation from a traditional tennis club, where “everyone was in their whites”, into a more inclusive community club that welcomes everyone.
For years, after the sad passing of her husband, Brenda Symes would watch members playing on the club’s courts from the window of her home in neighbouring Denbigh Close. Then, one day, a leaflet advertising a walking tennis course at the club, coupled with encouragement from a friend, gave her the push she needed to make the short walk from her home to the clubhouse.
“I have not looked back since,” she told the LDRS. “This club has turned my life around.”
Speaking to the LDRS after a busy morning of walking tennis, she joked: “I’m here so much, my kids now say we have to make an appointment for Mum.”
“We are all tennis mad here,” added the club’s memberships secretary Dominique Dohalle.
Spirits were high during our visit, with members cooling off during the recent heatwave with a lemonade – or something stronger – in the clubhouse. Yet, according to Andrew the building is “empty 80 percent of the time,” with it being “too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter”.
According to Andrew, the lack of temperature control and accessible facilities, combined with the building’s cramped conditions, limits the club’s ability to expand its social, commercial and community offering.
He recalled how the club recently had to pass up an opportunity from a local church group who wanted to host their meetings in the clubhouse. “We just don’t have the space,” he said.
In response, the club has now launched a fundraising drive including an online fundraising page to support the building of a new clubhouse to match its ambitions. It hopes this space will become the focal point of the club for future generations, whilst also providing a rentable space for other local groups.
The planned hybrid mass timber pavilion will include an enlarged clubroom, upgraded changing facilities, accessible toilets and storage space. The Sutton Council-approved designs also prioritise environmental sustainability, with design studio RISE proposing an ultra-low-energy Passivhaus design.
“We want this to last for decades, we don’t want the young members to have to go through this again,” Andrew said. This is the club’s third attempt to upgrade the clubhouse.
The funds needed for the new clubhouse are expected to exceed £700,000. However, with the support of national lottery grants and fundraising from the local community, they are hoping third time’s a charm.
The club is now in full swing with its fundraising, with shopping bag packing and local auctions already taking place over the summer. “We want to show we are going to work for this,” said Andrew.
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