Who stole Chorlton’s tennis courts? ……

Now I say stole but that I suspect is a bit unfair and what we are really dealing with is the slow dribbling away of members till the point came when the clubs were no longer viable.

Playing tennis in the Ville, circa 1912

Looking back, I have identified five tennis clubs across Chorlton over the last century and I reckon there will be more.

Some like those on Edge Lane, Vicars Road, Chorltonville, and the one beside the Lloyd’s Hotel were known to me, as were the tennis courts in Chorlton Park and this week I came across another, The Irwell Tennis Club which was located on Egerton Road South.

They were a response to the influx of new residents from the 1880s onwards, who settled here attracted by newly built homes within a short train ride into the heart of the city but located in an area which was still prominently rural.

And they were part of a wider development which saw a surge in a variety of cultural and sporting societies.

Tennis courts Vicars Road, 1933

All of our five tennis clubs survived into the second half of the last century and some still linger in the collective memory.

Chorltonville, 1912

Only a few weeks ago three people remembered their parents playing on the courts off Vicars Road, and yester Mike Wood commented “I can’t tell you anything about the Irwell TC but old maps show where the courts and pavilion were, on the corner SW of the Werburghs - Egerton Rd S crossroads.  

The odd numbering of the current cluster of houses here with lots of A & Bs shows that they were added some time later than the rest of ERS, with the numbers crowbarred into the pre-existing sequence.  

I do recall the courts on the other side of Werburgh’s just S of the railway, with a gate labelled Moss Side Tennis Club and steps leading down from the railway bridge, opposite Bailey’s Farm, to what is now Elladene Park. 

There were also courts within the SWMCC grounds, at the NW and SE corners, all fenced in and with small pavilions.  

 Forgotten gate post St Weburgh's Road, 2020

I remember that in about 1963-5 they were still in use, and there were relics of other courts (the posts for the nets and clay surfacing) disappearing under long grass along the N edge of the SWMCC adjoining Brantingham, now covered in houses.  

Those at the SE corner were used by a Mr Paterson to relentlessly coach his son David, every evening as we just lazed about near the cricket pitch – I think they lived on Silverdale Rd, and he may have been the same man who sold the land in 1959.

By ’67 these courts had fallen out of use and the pavilion was derelict.

Not sure this adds much, but it’s history!"

And jolly good history it is.

Location. Chorlton

Pictures; playing tennis in Chorltonville, 1912 from the Lloyd collection, site of the tennis courts in Chorltonville, 1912, the Vicars Road tennis courts 1933 from the OS map of Manchester & Salford, 1933/4, and forgotten gate posts St Werburgh's Road, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson