Grandstand At Wellesley Recreation Ground

The grandstand at Wellesley Recreation Ground is a football grandstand built between 1890 and 1891 by J.W. Cockrill, the Borough Engineer. It features a brick ground floor and a timber superstructure, with an asbestos-clad roof added in 1953.

On the exterior, the west elevation has 12 bays of canopy above the brick ground floor. The ground floor includes central brick and concrete steps, flanked by canted bay windows on either side, each with half-glazed double doors and three-paned fixed windows. There are nine cast-iron windows at intervals, with circular windows on either side of the south canted bay (the south one is boarded over), and the remainder are oval. The brickwork is adorned with square billet ornament at the top.

The superstructure forms an open grandstand with a raking terrace platform, defined by 12 open bays supported by square timber posts that have feathered chamfers, moulded capitals, and stopped bases. Each post features a passing brace to the east and three scrolled braces in other directions, along with a scalloped and pierced fascia board. The central gable has an elliptical insert with a decoratively pierced tympanum, and there is a clock from 1896 by E. Green of Yarmouth. The north and south returns have double timber doors to the ground floor, topped by five-vaned fanlights, with two segmental openings above. The gable heads are decorated with semi-elliptical boarding.

The rear (east) elevation consists of 12 bays of twin round-headed lancets, separated by flat buttresses, and features a common stringcourse. The grandstand stage includes braced timber panels.

Inside, the grandstand has a roof supported by 13 king-post trusses with diagonal horizontal braces between the posts. The ground floor contains timber-lined changing rooms, showers, and toilets, with a longitudinal passage running between doors in the gable ends. On the west side of this passage are cast-iron columns.

This grandstand is possibly the earliest surviving football grandstand in England and forms a group with the nearby Tennis Pavilion and Ticket Office.