Volunteers and staff from The Hockey Museum pose for a photograph in the Media Centre of the All England Lawn Tennis Club.

On Thursday 13 April a group of volunteers from The Hockey Museum (THM) enjoyed the privilege of visiting the All England Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon including a visit to its Museum. The day was made more challenging by a signalling meltdown at Waterloo train station. This caused detours and some emergency travel plans – the last time we organise a trip on the 13th of anything! – but the majority of the group made it more or less on time and were rewarded by a glorious spring day.

The visit, arranged by our curatorial team, was a combination of a fact-finding, professional outreach visit with the added pleasure of a grounds tour and a look behind the scenes of the workings of their museum. The tour included visits to both Centre Court, Number One Court, Murray Mound – or is it Henman Hill? – and a rare opportunity to visit the Wimbledon Championships’ Media Centre.

Outside and inside Wimbledon’s Centre Court during our tour of the All England Lawn Tennis Club grounds.

THM Curator Shane Smith commented:

“This was a rewarding day. A great professional recognition for The Hockey Museum from a fellow leader in the sports heritage community, but also an exciting and thought-provoking day out for our hard-working volunteers. The day was highly enjoyable and a great team building opportunity, but we also gained key insights into Wimbledon’s collection and archive management work.”

The Wimbledon archive includes the earliest wooden rackets, tennis clothing, tennis balls and all sorts of lawn tennis-related material from the game’s earliest, formative years. Access to their archive gave our group an opportunity to see close at hand how rare tennis artefacts were stored, catalogued and preserved as part of the game’s heritage. This reinforced the diligent, painstaking work that THM’s volunteers undertake with our own collection material, ably overseen by Collections Officer, Carli-Lyn Vermani.

A most enjoyable and professionally rewarding day out that will live long in the memory. Our thanks to the Lawn Tennis Museum team for hosting us so well.

The Hockey Museum group were excellently hosted by staff from the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum’s curatorial and learning teams.