Grandstand at Summers Lane sports ground

MATERIALS: reinforced concrete.

PLAN: rectangular and symmetrical in plan, orientated north-south, with a double-span cantilevered roof covering back-to-back stands, serving a football club to the west and rugby club to the east with separate changing rooms located below the stand.

EXTERIOR: the cantilevered concrete roof is supported on twelve T-shaped ribs set into the spine wall which divides the two halves of the stand. The football club stand roof has a later steel-framed, corrugated-iron clad extension with rounded ends supported on concrete columns. Below the roof the seating is set on nine levels of concrete terracing. The football club stand retains the original wooden bench seating in the end sections, set on concrete supports, but the central section has replacement plastic seating, which is not of special interest. The rugby club stand has similar replacement seating, which is not of special interest

The ends of the stands were originally protected by glazed panels set in steel frames. On the rugby club side the northern screen has been removed and the southern has lost its glazing. On the football club side both screens remain, although most of the glazing has been replaced with Perspex panels. Access to the stands is via a pair of centrally placed, splayed concrete stairs which project forward from the stand to create a porch for the entrance to the changing rooms below the stand. This space has been infilled on the rugby club side and a breeze-block tunnel inserted on the football side. Both sets of stairs and the stand parapets have later tubular steel safety railings.

The changing rooms below the stands originally had long narrow windows (five on each side of the central entrance) with metal Crittall frames. The openings remain unaltered on the rugby club side but have replacement uPVC frames (not of special interest). Those on the football club side have been altered to accommodate two additional entrances and have replacement metal frames.

INTERIOR: the changing rooms are laid out symmetrically with home and away dressing rooms either side of central shower/bathrooms with additional kit and referee’s rooms. Little remains of the original fittings. Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the interiors of both sets of changing rooms are not of special architectural or historic interest.