Tennis Club near Pantiles
Chris wrote to the Bagshot web site:
We have just moved into Pantiles House in Bagshot and have been told it was a tennis club once upon a time. Does anyone have any details or photos?
The location is on the A30, just south of Pantiles restaurant and night club. The 1934 Ordnance Survey map clearly shows a building (the present house) adjacent to the footpath to Windlesham and tennis courts behind.
Christine and Michael have written from Pennsylvania, USA.
We purchased Pantiles House for 6,800 pounds and moved there in April 1968. We lived there until September, 1972 when Michael's job transferred to the US. When we moved to Pantiles House our next door neighbours were Sydney and Meg Lowry, who had been there since 1937 and who were regular members of St. Anne's and it was from them that we learned virtually everything we know of the history of the house. The Lowry's moved to Yorkshire in the late 1970's, from whence they had originally come, and have both since passed away.On one occasion they introduced us to a gentleman, then about 90 years old, who had retired as head gardener at Bagshot Park. As a junior gardener in 1898, just after Pantiles House had been built, he had the job of planting the rhododendrons fronting the London Road. He had also assisted in laying out the original gardens of Pantiles House, which extended down to the railway line. When we moved to Pantiles most of this garden had been separated from the property with the intent of building more homes on it.
Pantiles House was originally built for a/the personal secretary of the Duke of Connaught living at the park. Some time in the 1920's it was purchased by the owner/manager of the Pantiles Club, which seems to have been mainly an athletic/tennis club rather than the social club which it later became. Maybe this was the tennis club that John Betjeman had in mind when he wrote his poem "A subaltern's Love Song" which otherwise refers to Camberley.
The owner/manager who lived in the house himself, but also apparently let rooms to other members of the staff, built the tennis courts around this time. There were several of them, terraced, going down towards the railway. They do not only seem to have been used by the club members themselves but tennis exhibitions were given there. In one of the downstairs rooms at Pantiles House there was a small newspaper cutting which we left there when we departed recording that the Duke himself had visited Pantiles House in 1938 to view one of these exhibition matches.
At this time there was a viewing balcony on the roof of what we called the sun lounge. It was accessed by double doors from the upstairs landing. The wooden balustrade which was there when we moved in was thoroughly rotted and I removed it.
Mr. Lowrey said that the tennis courts fell into disuse during World War II and never restored. The Pantiles Club, however, continued to function throughout the war and subsequently and can be seen in the movie about the life of Douglas Bader "Reach for the Sky".
The houses that Michael & Christine refer to as being planned were eventually built in the 1990's, a developer had for decades been accumulating land from houses as they came onto the market and this, together with the former railway goods yard, provided the land for development. Accessed from Station Road, the bulk of the estate is called Lory Ridge, presumably named after Bagshot's first vicar, Rev Pendarves Lory.
John, an ex-pat now living in Australia, saw this article and wrote:
I used to live next door to the Lowrey's from 1959 to 1965 before moving to Australia. I remember them as being wonderful neighbours. I was interested to see that Pantiles House is still there. London Road was a very busy road as you would know and if there was going to be an accident it would happen outside our house.
I was able to tell John that the house he lived in is still there.
If you have any further knowledge about the tennis club or its club house, I would love to hear from you. Please use the message pad below
Pantiles' Swimming Pool
Ron wrote: I have no knowledge of the tennis club or Pantiles House, but the Pantiles known to all local children and most adults in the late 1940's was the Swimming Pool. I believe it was privately owned. Bagshot school used it for their 11 year old pupils and at other times was open to the general public. ref 612.0206
The pool was on the other side of Pantiles to the tennis courts. It is no longer there.
Frank Papworth adds : In the late 1950's and 60's the swimmming pool was open to the public and as a boy I had a season ticket each year. The pool had a large parking area between it and the A30. The pool area itself had a lawn on one side and individual changing rooms on the other. There were diving boards at the deep end. 650.0306
Alan J, writing from the USA, says : I think the Pantiles Swimming Pool closed sometime in the late 1960's. I had a part-time job at the Heron Petrol (Gas to us Yanks) Station about 1970 and the pool was behind the Station. 672.506
Marilyn Hills (nee Kircher) recalls : Around 1955 to 58, Cliff Richard and his family came to swim here. Word soon got around. I was in the middle of drying the dishes for my Mum when a girlfriend arrived with the news, Mum let me off the chores and we sped up to the pool. As I recall, in the time he was theire he changed his swimming trunks several times. We waited patiently for an autograph, and he signed one for me on an old Weights cigarette packet that I picked up off the ground. I believe his mother and sister was also there and I think it was as he was just getting famous. Does anyone else recall that time I wonder. 1624.1006
Lionel Parr recalls that the pool was built about 1934-5, and remembers swimming there between 1938 and the war. 118.1207
From Ken Wells: I remember swimming at the Pantiles, Kenneth Moore shot a film in the restuarant next door, this was in 1958/9 and I remember the changing rooms were wood and the shallow end had little steps you could sit on. I learnt to dive off those boards. 231.407
Can you add anything about the swimming pool? Do you know when it closed?
Please use the message pad below.
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