In 1935 four
members paid £52 for 53 roods and 31 perches of land at Tetbury Hill,
which today is the site of Malmesbury Tennis Club. Clinker was hauled
by cart from the railway station, and this provided the foundation for
the new hard courts. Play was halted during the Second World War, but
by 1945 after a lot of hard work the club was back in action again.
In 1958 the
courts were relaid with "Red Griselda", red shale and were used for
many years. However, this surface limited play to the summer months and
was expensive to maintain, so after much fund raising the bottom court
was eventually changed to a non upkeep surface. This allowed play to be
all the year around, and by 1995 all 3 courts had been re-surfaced to
the same all weather standard. Flood lights have now been added to the
top two courts, extending still further the potential playing time. Last year we purchase some more land on which we are hoping to add two more courts, so fund raising is beginning in earnest.
We have a
small club house with Ladies and Gents changing facilities and a
kitchen area with table tennis for those cold winter evenings when
tennis is rained off.
We are a
thriving club with 153 members made up of 70 full members, 28
associates and 55 juniors, while the remainder are winter and
complementary members. Club play is on a roll-up basis on Tuesday and
Friday evenings and Sunday mornings through the summer, and both junior and senior
coaching facilities are available. During the winter we run an internal winter league on Monday and Friday evenings.
We have three men's
teams, one ladies and two mixed teams who play in the Chippenham &
District Tennis League.
