Six gentlemen founded a croquet club in a magazine office in 1868, and accidentally created the most famous venue in tennis. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on Church Road, Wimbledon, began on 23 July 1868 as the All England Croquet Club, set aside one lawn for the new game of lawn tennis in 1875, and staged the first Championships in 1877 - 22 entrants, play suspended so as not to clash with the Eton versus Harrow cricket match. The club left its original Worple Road ground for the present Church Road site in 1922, bringing with it the name Centre Court - coined when the principal court sat in the middle of the old grid - which only became geographically accurate again when new courts were added in 1980. Centre Court today seats 14,979 beneath the folding concertina roof completed in 2009, its entryway inscribed with Kipling's lines about triumph and disaster; No.1 Court and a further sixteen Championship grass courts complete the tournament estate alongside twenty practice lawns, clay, acrylic and indoor courts. The Championships remain the sport's oldest and most prestigious event, the only Grand Slam still played on grass, its rituals - whites, strawberries, the royal box, the queue - unchanged in spirit across three centuries of editions. The grounds have carried more than tennis: Centre Court hosted the tennis events of the 2012 London Olympics, and the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum keeps the club's history on public display year-round with behind-the-scenes tours of the famous lawns. The club itself remains a private members' institution - roughly 500 members plus honorary champions - which makes the fortnight each summer all the more remarkable: the world's biggest tennis audience camping on the doorstep of one of sport's most exclusive addresses, SW19 briefly the centre of the sporting world.

Type: Stadium / Arena

Address: Church Road, London, United Kingdom, SW19 5AE

Website: https://wimbledon.com

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 14979

Opening Date: 23/07/1868

Serves Food

Outdoor Area

Accessible