Winchmore Hill Sports Club
Winchmore Hill Sports Club is an amateur sports club based in north London, United Kingdom. The club was founded in 1880, and currently has sections for cricket, football, lawn tennis, hockey, and table tennis.
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| Full name | Winchmore Hill Sports Club |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1880 |
| Ground | The Paulin Ground, London N21 3ER |
| Website | Club website |
For each sport except hockey, home games are played at The Paulin Ground in Winchmore Hill. Hockey games now require the use of modern artificial surface pitches and thus are played at locally hired facilities.
Club history
The club started [1] as Winchmore Hill Cricket Club in 1880 and was originally a cricket club alone.
In 1880 the Busk family owned the land in Winchmore Hill known as Ford's Grove. Their head gardener, John Moore, asked Mr. Busk for permission to play cricket in the grounds and Winchmore Hill Cricket Club was formed. The first reported match of the Winchmore Hill Village Cricket Club was against North End Finchley, played at the ground to be known as Ford's Grove, on 21 May 1881.
In 1912 the lawn tennis section and four tennis courts were established, two being situated on the site of the present practice wickets (nets). The first recorded club tournament was in 1914, and the ladies singles was won by a Miss Carter and the gentleman's singles by Mr. J.W. Simmons.
The four years 1919 to 1922 were important landmarks in the club's development with the addition of two winter sports, football and ladies hockey, thereby completing the constitution of the four main outdoor playing sections as they are today. The football section was formed in the spring of 1920 and the Grange Ladies Hockey Club became a section of the parent club with each section being self-managing.
In order to provide better dressing room accommodation for an ever increasing membership, it was during the winter of 1921/22 that a new pavilion was erected. The building itself is a former officers' mess and came from the wartime army camp at Wimbledon and, apart from a new extension built in 1974, is still in use today. The cost of the pavilion, £1,750, was borne mostly from donations and loans by the Club President and members.
Mr. W.T. Paulin purchased the grounds when the Ford's Grove estate was auctioned in 1920. His daughter, Irene, became President of the club and secured its future by directing in her will, upon her death in 1960, that a 99-year lease be granted to the club.
The club formally changed its name to Winchmore Hill Sports Club in 2013 in recognition of the multi sport nature of the membership.
Facilities
The club is set in roughly 20 acres of land in Winchmore Hill, London. Surrounding the centrally located clubhouse are four floodlit hard surface tennis courts and five grass courts, a floodlit enclosed artificial surface multi usage games area, and grass fields which allow for cricket in the summer months, and football in the winter. Cricket takes place on three squares (together with practice nets), and there are four full size football pitches plus two small size pitches for youth teams.