The former Bramcote Tennis Pavilion

Sports pavilion, 1885 by John Hall for the North of England Lawn Tennis Club. Arts and Crafts Tudor Revival style.

MATERIALS: half-timbered with rendered brick infill to the forward elevations, red brick in English Garden Wall Bond to the rear. Roofing of small, plain, red clay tiles with mitred hips and terracotta cresting.

PLAN: a central, square hall, open as a veranda to the south with a changing room for gentlemen to the east and a bow-fronted changing room for ladies to the west. To the rear there is a kitchen and a larger club room or office. Toilets are to the rear of both changing rooms. To the north east there is an attached outbuilding.

EXTERIOR: single-storey with a partial attic. Although the building is relatively small, it has a complex form resulting in every elevation being asymmetric. The main roof ridge is aligned east-west, forming hips with the roofs of the dressing rooms, which project south from either end: that over the ladies’ changing room forms an apse to the south; that over the gentlemen’s changing room is a broader gable with an attic window, the gable projecting southwards to form an eastwards continuation of the central veranda. The east-west ridge extends east to form an attic roof dormer on the east slope of the gentlemen’s changing room. Extending to the north of the main roof there is a lower, hipped roof over the kitchen and office with a tall chimney rising from its west side. To the east there is the lean-to roof over the attached outbuilding, this roof forming a lower-pitched catslide from the main roof. The various roof hips are finished with mitred tiles; valleys are also tiled. The ridges are terracotta with perforated cresting. The chimney is brick-built with a degree of elaboration with a cornice and projecting banding.

The changing rooms are half-timbered, set on a brick plinth. The timbering is close studded with a high-set mid-rail and twinned, straight down-braces. The panels are rendered over brickwork and the windows are mullioned with leaded lights. The posts forming the front of the veranda have high set curved braces. One post is omitted from the central veranda to form the entrance to the pavilion, this being reached via a flight of external steps. The rear of the building is simpler, being brick-built with cambered brick arched openings, the windows having projecting sills and plate glass sashes.

INTERIOR: not inspected, but reported to be little altered.