The Tennis Centre has a complicated history – starting out life as a Cricket Pitch/Pavilion back in the early 1900s, and indeed there is a picture in the Clubhouse bar depicting a cricket team in front of the Clubhouse in 1906 as seen above; view the full picture here.

The site was given to the RAF along with Halton House and all the surrounding land, which now makes up RAF Halton, by the owners (the Rothschild family) for use as a training camp during World War I.

In 1929, the cricket pitch was replaced by grass tennis courts for use by the Officers of RAF Halton. As a self sufficient base, the RAF had a large farm and numerous greenhouses located just behind our current stand and a large vegetable patch where our current air hall is located. The canal was also in use by boats trading goods, and a large turnaround area for the boats was located in the area behind the air hall. It was moved towards Weston Turville, due to the large number of mosquitoes, and the turnaround filled in.

In the 1950s, due to falling numbers, all ranks were allowed to use the facilities and then, in 1983, local civilians were also allowed to play, and HVLTC was born. The existing air hall was erected by the RAF in 1979, to provide all year tennis, and was the first of its kind in the UK. Click here to read a vintage magazine article from 1980 (in PDF format).

Our outdoor courts have also had a few different lives – the 2 hard courts by the clubhouse belonged to the RAF Halton station and were “shale” – the old fashioned messy red clay surface until the mid 1980s when they changed to the tar macadam we have today. The other 2 hard courts suffered badly from moss, and in 2004 were changed to artificial grass. The 6 courts directly outside the clubhouse have been grass (1929 – 1985), artificial grass (1985 - 1995), acrylic (1995 - 2002) and now back to artificial grass.

Following a fall in use by the RAF in the late 1990s, and pressure on finances, in 2001 it was decided to create a partnership between the RAFLTA and HVLTC (previously just a tenant), to try and create a sustainable future, and the Halton Tennis Centre (HTC) was born.

Since then we have gone from strength to strength, supported by the purchase of our freehold from the MOD by the RAF Central Funds, and issue of long lease to HTC. This has enabled us to have security of tenure for the first time in our history, and now invest in the long term future.

The images below show the work done by the Army recently in building our new access road as part of our expansion. The plans we are currently actioning will take HVLTC to the next stage of its long and successful evolution.