Description

TQ 2376 Stevenage Road
(West Side)

9/45 Grandstand and turnstiles
to Fulham Football Club

GV II

Football club grandstand with turnstiles. Built in 1905 to the design of Archibald Leitch.

MATERIALS: Red brick façade with stone dressings; steel trussed roof (not visible from street)covered in corrugated iron.

PLAN: Long frontage to Stevenage Road with covered stand behind. 3 storey street frontage of 27 bays with single-storey attached turnstile blocks to the left and right of 9 and 8 bays respectively.

DESCRIPTION: Almost symmetrical composition with shaped gables to centre 3 bays and to bays 5 and 6 from either side. Arched windows to ground floor and paired exit doors beneath segmental arches; narrow square headed entrances at intervals. Square-headed mullioned windows in triplets to first floor with blind panels between bearing strapwork cartouches. Segmental-headed windows to third storey lighting stand to rear. Behind is a 2-tier stand with a pitched corrugated-iron roof carried on triangular steel trusses with curved lower chords. The front of the roof is cantilevered forward by means of a lateral lattice girder carrying an awning, supported on a series of lattice stanchions. The roof has a central triangular pediment. Upper tier of stand has original wooden seating; modern seating to lower tier. Tunnels lead to former changing rooms beneath.

HISTORY: Fulham FC was founded in 1879 and moved to its present site in 1896. Its popular name: 'Craven Cottage' alludes to an C18 cottage orné which once stood on the site.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Of special interest as a well-preserved early surviving example of a football grandstand by Archibald Leitch (1866-1939), the foremost football stadium designer of the early C20. The façade is unusual in that it was a conscious attempt to give ornate treatment to a building type which was usually austere and functional.

SOURCES: English Heritage: Fulham Football Club, Historians' report, 1987; Simon Inglis: Football Grounds of Britain, 1996; Simon Inglis: Engineering Archie, 2005

Listing NGR: TQ2365076621

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26353383

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
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  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
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  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)