BUYERS are sought by an estate agents for the land occupied by a now-defunct tennis club founded in 1926.
The 17,500 sq ft triangular plot, comprising a pavilion and three unlit tarmac tennis courts, belongs to the former North Harrow Tennis Club off Cumberland Road in North Harrow.
Offers are invited for the land by Baker Pearce, in Rayners Lane, Pinner, which has not put a price tag on the property.
Diane Owen, who has been the club’s treasurer and secretary for more than 30 years and is one of two trustees, said: “It has been a very difficult decision to sell the club but we couldn’t get any hope of resurrecting it.
“It was always a small club, and we only offered tennis. There were just too many other clubs in Harrow.
“Lots of members moved away and while it was going downhill lots of us went up to play at Headstone Tennis Club and some still came down and played a bit here.
“We hadn’t had any new members for years and you can’t run a club with just 10 members, and I was the only woman.
“It hasn’t been used for two or three years now.”
Mrs Owen said the courts are moss-covered and rundown and the pavilion is the one built after its predecessor was torched twice in the space of a decade in the 1970s or 1980s.
The proceeds of the land sale will be split between those who have been members for a minimum of five years at any point in the club’s history, and not necessarily consecutive years, and to this end Mrs has been poring over the old membership lists to track beneficaries down.
Julia Ginger, secretary of the Headstone Tennis Club in Hillfield Close, North Harrow, said: “We sort of amalgamated with North Harrow Tennis Club about five years ago in that they didn’t have enough members to enter a league team and they weren't getting the quality of tennis they wanted so we offered them a reduced subscription and they could be members of both clubs.
“Quite a lot of their members came to us.”
The land does not have planning permission and access is via an alleyway which cannot accommodate a car so Baker Pierce advises in its advertisement that a purchaser would have to buy a bordering house to widen the entranceway.
