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THE CLUB
The club is based in Stormont
Road, Battersea, London.
The club has its own purpose-built four-storey building. The basement
originally housed a rifle range, but this space has now been converted into a
dance studio, a recording studio and a silk-screen workshop. The main floor
houses the social areas, the computer suite and table tennis hall, and art
room. The upper levels provide a large gym, weights room, meeting rooms, and
practice rooms. There is a caged basket-ball pitch on the roof.
We are seeking funding for
the next development stage of the club.
We want to install a lift
to provide full accessibility to the upper floors, and transform the gym into
a multi-purpose space that can give the club an excellent performing arts
venue.
The roof has stunning
views over London, and our plans
include the provision of a social space as well as a vegetable and herb
garden.
The building is robust and
has withstood well nearly forty years of energetic youth activity, but needs
renovation to meet the demands of today’s young people. We also plan to
transform a 1960’s gas-gusler building into a model of sustainability. Our
aim is to make the building carbon-neutral through the installation of wind
and solar power generation combined with improved thermal insulation.
To see our latest
newsletter click here.
HISTORY
In
1884, Jocelyn Devas started a ‘Club for Working Lads’ in a room over a coffee
tavern in Stewarts Road,
Battersea. He was a graduate of University College Oxford, and, after his
death from a climbing accident in Zermatt in 1886, his
father offered a substantial endowment if his college friends would carry on
the work in Battersea.
Arthur L Harding was one
of these friends, and was the guiding hand behind the move to larger premises
in Thessaly Road where
substantial rebuilding work was carried out in 1907. The main purpose of the
Club’s work was initially educational, but as this function became
increasingly taken over by the London County Council’s evening classes,
sporting activities began to take precedence in the programme. A club for
girls, which shared the same building, was started in 1960.
The move of the Covent Garden
market to Nine Elms entailed the compulsory purchase of the Thessaly
Road property. The City Parochial Foundation
acquired an alternative site for the Club in Stormont
Road and commissioned the building of the present
accommodation which was opened in 1970.
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