Were there tennis courts in Stoke in the past?

When looking at old maps of the Stoke neighbourhood, we noticed tennis courts marked near Penlee Gardens (off Molesworth Road) on the 1907 map of the area.

Section of OS Map – Devonshire Sheet CXXIII.NE Revised: 1905, Published: 1907 via National Library of Scotland – CC-BY – https://maps.nls.uk/view/101445514
Present-day location of the Penlee Tennis Courts (no. 2 – 16 Penlee Way and no. 134 – 142 Wingfield Road). Basemap by Open Street Map.

Stephen Johnson (who runs the Cyberheritage Facebook group) shared a photograph from 1870s, looking south from one of the large houses at Penlee Villas (looking out over the private park at Penlee Gardens). We can also see one of the buildings (running parallel to Molesworth Road) that is part of the tennis court complex from the 1907 map on the right-hand side of the image!

Archive photograph from the McCarthy collection – shared via Cyberheritage

In an enlarged close up of one section of the photo, he draws our attention to “what looks like a crowd of young ladies” outside the building that was part of the tennis court complex.

Enlarged section of the archive photograph from the McCarthy collection – shared via Cyberheritage
Section of undated OS Map showing “Tennis Ground” near Beaumont House, Stoke – shared by Cyberheritage

We are also aware of another (different) set of tennis courts, marked as “Tennis Ground” in this section of an old OS map (undated) – near to the grounds of Beaumont House.

This site is now built over (and Beaumont House no longer exists), on the area where Stoke Damerel Community College is today.

Contributors:

  • Karen Moore
  • Rachel Dobbs