Entrance Range Including Tote Board At Walthamstow Stadium

Entrance Range and Tote Board at Walthamstow Stadium

This is an entrance range and totaliser board for a greyhound stadium, built in 1932 with later 20th-century alterations. The architect is unknown. The structure is built of concrete in the Art Deco style.

The landmark frontage to Chingford Road features a tall central parapet (with the tote board on its reverse) with stepped detailing to the top and a central clock. This carries prominent lettering reading "WALTHAMSTOW" in a slightly cambered arrangement over a racing greyhound, above the word "STADIUM". The lettering and greyhound are particularly visible at night when neon lights installed in 1951 for the Coronation illuminate them. In front of this stands a wide, low concrete range formerly used for parking, which is also Art Deco in its detailing. The open ground floor has wide bays with splayed arches, followed by a fluted entablature and then tapered obelisks supporting the upper open-air parking deck. Horizontal tube railings run along the structure, and a curved balustrade dating from the 1980s features red tubular metalwork. Integral car park ramps run through the end bays to the upper deck. The entire structure sits on a low plinth with similar fluted detailing. Deep beams run back the full depth of the car park range, which is open at the ends, with the fluted detailing continuing along the return walls.

Set back to the right is a two-storey entrance range containing first-floor offices. The offices have a parade of single windows with three panes arranged vertically, followed by a continuous horizontal band that takes the curved corner in a streamlined manner. The entrance marked "Popular" is at the far right. To the left, the plinth curves round to the front into a low wall with fluted detailing. The rear of the prominent parapet contains the tote board, which faces the track and stands. It was computerised in the 1980s but otherwise remains as it appears in early photographs.

Attached to the southwest is the former stand, converted to a restaurant called the Classic Diner in the 1990s, though this is of lesser interest. The separate north and south spectator stands are not included in the listing as they are of lesser architectural significance, though the north stand carries the main entrance of 1969 and has been substantially altered and extended to the east in the later 20th century.

The Popular entrance to the south contains metal turnstiles. There are few other interiors of significance in the front section.

The stadium was first built in 1931 on the site of the former Walthamstow Grange football club by the Chandler family, who still own the enterprise. The complex has undergone numerous improvements and additions since opening, including rebuilt spectator stands shortly after construction, new glazed-in stands in 1965, and a new main entrance on the north side in 1969. The notable frontage range remains substantially as built in 1931. The kennels were constructed as part of the original phase. A licence was obtained under the Parliamentary Totalisator Betting Act in 1934. The stands were rebuilt in 1934 and again in 1938; the latter date applies to the concrete south stand that survives today, albeit altered. A photograph from 1952 for the Coronation shows the front illuminated with neon lights in the same design as today, though with additional swags and the inscription "Long live Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II". The complex underwent considerable updating in the 1980s, its second heyday, when post-modern red tubular detailing was added and hospitality suites were updated.

The east entrance from Chingford Road is flanked by a pair of slightly tapered pylons with fluted detailing to the plinth and top. The kennels are listed separately.

Greyhound racing as a sport evolved from the 1920s out of the older leisure pursuit of hare and rabbit coursing. It was invented by Oklahoma entrepreneur O.P. Smith, who developed the mechanical hare; the concept came to England in 1925. The Belle Vue Greyhound Stadium in Manchester was the first such facility established in Britain, followed by another at White City in London. By 1939, there were 100 tracks across Britain, with London having at least ten. It was hugely popular, and in 1946, attendance numbers rivalled those for football. The number of surviving tracks is much lower; 56 currently operate in Britain.