Rare Victorian tennis pavilion in Scarborough placed on national Endangered Buildings list 2024
Diminutive Bramcote Tennis Pavilion in Scarborough has been listed on The Victorian Society’s (VS) Top Ten Endangered Buildings list 2024.
The society says the Arts and Crafts veranda-style bungalow, which was built in 1885, just a decade after the sport was introduced to the All England Club in Wimbledon, needs urgent preservation.
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Hide AdFollowing concerns that the building could be demolished, it was given a Grade II listing in 2017, with Historic England describing it as "a very early and rare surviving purpose-built lawn tennis pavilion...one of the earliest surviving lawn tennis buildings in the world."


The government’s heritage adviser said the building, which had women's and men's changing rooms, was of special interest because of its "complex design, its intricate roof and its half-timbered, principal elevation, producing a charming building of considerable visual appeal".
Scarborough & District Civic Society is keen to see it restored. Member Christine Perry said: "I've lived in Scarborough for 22 years and it looks more or less the same as when I first came.
"One of our members drew up plans to convert it into a home. It is possible but somebody needs the money and enthusiasm to do it.
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Hide Ad"A lot of purpose-built sports buildings have already been lost through demolition or converted into something else. To have a purpose built tennis pavilion from that era is getting a little bit rare."


VS president Griff Rhys Jones said “How can we not find a proper new use for this elegant testament to the history of tennis? Like all good old buildings, it is an education in itself. It has a story. It teaches continuity. Local achievement. And fun history."
The pavilion has been leased on a long-term basis, along with a new athletics track, by landowner Scarborough College to Bramcote Athletics Ltd, which invested more than £1m into the eight-lane track and other facilities, which opened last year.
Director Richard Guthrie said the comments made by the VS were "frustrating". He said: "From what I understand it has been in a dilapidated state for many years. In more recent times the site has been tidied up significantly.
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Hide Ad"As far as I'm aware nobody from the VS has been bothered to come up to Scarborough to actually look at the building and see it in its context.


"It is somewhat frustrating to put a lot of time, energy and money into a project for sincere community purposes only for parties to find a negative angle to press!
"I have every hope and expectation that in the near to medium term we can raise the right capital to refurbish the building and use it once again for the purpose of sport."