Played in London Charting the Heritage of a City at Play

Played in London Charting the heritage of a city at play Simon Inglis with additional research by Jackie Spreckley Played in London Design by Doug Cheeseman Printed by Butler Tanner & Dennis © English Heritage 2014 Frome, Somerset BA11 1NF Production by Jackie Spreckley English Heritage Maps by Mark Fenton ISBN: 978 1 84802 057 3 is the government’s statutory For image credits see page 348 Product code: 51537 advisor on all aspects of the historic environment Malavan Media is a creative consultancy responsible Fire Fly Avenue for the Played in Britain series Swindon SN2 2EH www.playedinbritain.co.uk www.english-heritage.org.uk Introduction Introduction f, in the end, it really does boil An abundance too: over 3,200 outside the capital), still exceeded Idown to bread and circuses, clubs spread across 50 sports, 10 million, a new record for the Juvenal’s panem et circenses, there is including 14 professional football Olympic movement. not a city on the planet to match clubs (more than any city apart So no matter how the figures are what London has on offer. from Buenos Aires), and eleven presented, the conclusion remains In earlier urban studies within clubs playing at a senior national the same; that London earns a lot the Played in Britain series we saw level in both codes of rugby. of its bread from circuses of one how, for example in Birmingham, Plus there are the two county sort or another. provision for sports and recreation cricket clubs based in the capital, Much of this income, inevitably, was powered by metal-bashing Middlesex and Surrey, both derives from overseas. For it is and manufacturing, and how in playing at grounds that rank also the case that while many of Liverpool, shipping and trade were among the 22 venues in London the 16 million foreign tourists a the great drivers. holding 10,000 spectators or year who visit London (as of 2013) So what drives London? more (the largest being Wembley are drawn by its historic treasures, Since the Royal Society of Arts The short, and unoriginal Stadium, with 90,000 seats). its museums and art galleries, its erected London’s first plaque in answer is finance, and culture. Seat for seat, no other city can theatres and shops, many come 1867 (to Lord Byron, in Holles And what is an important match this level of provision, not here because of sport. Street, long since lost), nearly 900 element of culture? even football crazy Rio or sports Although separate figures others have followed. Charles Physical culture. Sport and mad Melbourne. Indeed if we add for London do not exist, it has Burgess Fry, arguably England’s recreation. Participating in it, up the capacities of all the venues been reported that in 2008, three most gifted all-round sportsman obviously. Watching it, clearly. that currently cater for sport in the million foreign tourists played ever – a first class cricketer, But in London’s case, capital, the aggregate totals an or watched sport in Britain, 1.2 footballer and athlete, a brilliant organising it too, governing it, astonishing 780,000. million of whom attended football journalist but also an often deeply staging it, marketing it, selling it, This compares with 123,000 matches. Horse racing and golf troubled individual – has two. The broadcasting it, reporting on it. seats at London’s 100 cinemas, were the next most popular. above plaque, placed in 2005, can Sport is deeply ingrained within and 43,000 seats in its 52 theatres When Martial visited the be seen at 114 St James’s Road the everyday life of the capital, (not including the fringe). Colosseum in 80AD he looked in Croydon, while his final place trumpeting its might on the back Of course cinemas and theatres around him and asked ‘if there was of residence, in Lyndale Avenue pages, beavering away at the grass are open six or seven days a week, any race so remote, so barbarous’ NW2, bears an earlier plaque roots, flexing its muscles in the so comparisons with sports venues that it was not represented in the put up by Hendon Corporation. gym and working up a sweat in are not necessarily valid. crowd? There was a Thracian, he All told currently 48 sportsmen the local park. Sport feeds into But as a broad illustration, noted, a Sarmatian, an Arab, a and women have plaques in London’s great obsessions – style, 14 million tickets were sold at Sygambrian and an Ethiopian. And their honour dotted around the celebrity, news, architecture, the London’s theatres in 2013. This one man from a land ‘whose shore capital, erected by a variety of property market and, of course, was roughly twice the number sold the wave of farthest Tethys beats’, agencies, most notably English big business. Always business (not over the same period for sporting by which it is thought Martial Heritage since 1986. And yet forgetting its frothy concomitant, events, 3.6 million of which were meant Britannia. when the London County Council corporate hospitality). for Premier League matches at the And so it is today in the unveiled its first plaque – to Lord So when, in the summer of capital’s six leading football clubs. colosseums of London, where the Macaulay, in Campden Hill W8 2012, London became the first city But if we take 2012, a year of babel of voices in the stands is (also long lost), in 1903 – Lord in the world to have staged three so many happenings in London, nowadays an echo of those spoken Rosebery declared that he hoped modern Olympics, this was no combined ticket sales for the down on the pitch, or on the track, such plaques would force on the accident. Olympics and Paralympics alone or on the court. minds of young people that there For when it comes to sport, (bearing in mind that around Not all these foreign circus- existed ‘other avenues of fame’ London has form. a tenth of sales were for events goers are passive observers. than ‘the Olympian games’. From the collection of Newham Heritage & Archives, this 1860s poster advertises a venue best known in east London as ‘the Dog’. Laid out in c.1840 by William Vause, licensee of the Spotted Dog, and since 1888 home to amateurs Clapton FC, it is the fourth oldest enclosed ground in the capital. The adjoining Grade II listed pub, alas, is boarded up and on the Heritage at Risk Register. 4 Played in London Played in London 5 Introduction SPORTSCAPES very Londoner has his or her work of 1989, Sports Geography, the E own mental map of the capital, first book of its kind in Britain London’s oldest sportscapes fashioned from years of getting to address the study of sport and This is a selected list of historic sportscapes still in use for sport, excluding around, accumulated emotional place. Bale defined a sportscape as parks originating in the public sector, by date of earliest reference to baggage always in tow. ‘a mono-functional site given over organised sport (excluding hunting and jousting) * denotes enclosed ground On this mental map are traced only to sport’. familiar routes and cherished Other academics have since 1373 Blackheath wrestling, golf, cricket, rugby, hockey landmarks, interspersed with picked up on Bale’s lead, each 1659 Tothill Fields golf, bowls, stoolball, later Vincent Square* (1810-) buildings and places that, for adding their own interpretation. 1666 Richmond Green cricket, rugby better or worse, are loaded with To an extent, Played in Britain is a 1707 Duppas Hill, Croydon cricket, football personal meaning. by-product of this discourse. 1720 HAC Artillery Garden* cricket, rugby, football, archery This section of the book seeks As is the conclusion that if 1723 Moulsey Hurst/later Hurst Park cricket, boxing, horse racing to show that for individuals with considered in isolation, individual 1730 Mitcham Green cricket (but claim also for 1685) an interest in physical culture, the sportscapes, be they stadiums, 1735 Woodford Green cricket ‘sportscapes’ of the capital form a athletics tracks, bowling greens 1737 Kew Green cricket map layer of their own, both in the or whatever, can tell us only c. 1775 Sun Inn, Barnes bowling green (but claim also for 1725)* mind and in a very practical sense. so much. The same is true if 1814 Lord’s* cricket, athletics, real tennis In other words, that to be placing sportscapes within the 1822 Chislehurst Common cricket engaged with sport is in itself to be context only of one sport (which, 1833 Twickenham Green cricket engaged with the city. understandably in view of most 1844 Spotted Dog ground* cricket, football Mostly when we go to the fans’ passions, is typically how 1845 The Oval* cricket, football theatre or cinema, to a museum or their stories are told). 1848 Outdoor Gymnasium, Primrose Hill gallery, we sample prepared works For a deeper understanding, 1857 Crystal Palace Park* cricket, athletics, football, cycling, rugby that could be staged, and probably one that attempts to locate a 1858 Gander Lane, Sutton* cricket will be staged in any equivalent sportscape within the wider urban 1863 Bushy Park Teddington & Hampton Wick Royal CCs cricket space, in any town or city. A and historical context, experience Beddington Park cricket sporting encounter, on the other has shown that taking a step back 1865 Old Deer Park* cricket, rugby, archery, hockey, bowls hand, is a one-off happening that and looking at a larger area, or at Wimbledon Common: golf in most instances is place specific. clusters of sportscapes, offers a 1866 Foxgrove Road, Beckenham* cricket, tennis, hockey Travelling across London more useful set of insights.

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