Grandstand And Turnstiles To Fulham Football Club

TQ 2376 Stevenage Road (West Side)

9/45 Grandstand and turnstiles to Fulham Football Club GV II

Football club grandstand with turnstiles. Built in 1905 to the design of Archibald Leitch.

MATERIALS: Red brick façade with stone dressings; steel trussed roof (not visible from street)covered in corrugated iron.

PLAN: Long frontage to Stevenage Road with covered stand behind. 3 storey street frontage of 27 bays with single-storey attached turnstile blocks to the left and right of 9 and 8 bays respectively.

DESCRIPTION: Almost symmetrical composition with shaped gables to centre 3 bays and to bays 5 and 6 from either side. Arched windows to ground floor and paired exit doors beneath segmental arches; narrow square headed entrances at intervals. Square-headed mullioned windows in triplets to first floor with blind panels between bearing strapwork cartouches. Segmental-headed windows to third storey lighting stand to rear. Behind is a 2-tier stand with a pitched corrugated-iron roof carried on triangular steel trusses with curved lower chords. The front of the roof is cantilevered forward by means of a lateral lattice girder carrying an awning, supported on a series of lattice stanchions. The roof has a central triangular pediment. Upper tier of stand has original wooden seating; modern seating to lower tier. Tunnels lead to former changing rooms beneath.

HISTORY: Fulham FC was founded in 1879 and moved to its present site in 1896. Its popular name: 'Craven Cottage' alludes to an C18 cottage orné which once stood on the site.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Of special interest as a well-preserved early surviving example of a football grandstand by Archibald Leitch (1866-1939), the foremost football stadium designer of the early C20. The façade is unusual in that it was a conscious attempt to give ornate treatment to a building type which was usually austere and functional.

SOURCES: English Heritage: Fulham Football Club, Historians' report, 1987; Simon Inglis: Football Grounds of Britain, 1996; Simon Inglis: Engineering Archie, 2005

Listing NGR: TQ2365076621