Revealed: Wimbledon's new expansion with Parkland Show Court and 38 extra grass courts

A new Wimbledon show court – the first for a decade – will be built on the far side of Church Road and made ready for play by 2030, according to plans laid out on Wednesday by the All England Club.

An artist’s impression of the new “Parkland” court shows that it will be set in a clearing within a group of ancient oak trees. It is to have an 8,000-seat capacity – which will make it Wimbledon’s third-string stadium after the Centre and No 1 Courts – and a retractable roof.

The new court will sit on what is now Wimbledon Park Golf Club. Bought for £65 million in 2018, these 73 acres have almost tripled the land available to the AELTC. The tennis club’s previous territories – including car parks – stood at just 42 acres.

Options for development are limited by a number of historic trees, but the plans – which have been put up on the Wimbledon website as part of a consultation exercise – also reveal that 39 grass courts are to be established within the former golf club site, almost doubling the club’s overall capacity. Bulldozers will arrive soon after the final round has been played on December 31 this year.

Once the developments have been completed, Church Road will be closed during Wimbledon fortnight and the whole 115-acre site – which is split in two by the road – treated as a single entity. As the document explains, “From a safety and security perspective it has been highly recommended by the Metropolitan Police Service.”

The central motivation for the AELTC’s early acquisition of the golf club’s land (which they already owned, technically speaking, but had leased out until 2041) was to bring the qualifying event onto the main Wimbledon site as soon as possible, in line with the other three majors.

Qualifying is now held at the Bank of England Sports Ground in nearby Roehampton, but the imminent sale of those grounds added an extra element of urgency. According to the timeline included within the new plans, the new grass courts could host qualifying as soon as 2028. (Whoever buys the Bank of England site will have to maintain the present system until then.)

The concept for the new Parkland court is reminiscent of Court Simonne Mathieu at Roland Garros, unveiled in 2019, which sits in a similarly sylvan setting. Encouragingly for lovers of the Wimbledon queue, seats will be made available to grounds-pass holders. However, one surprising feature of the plans is the absence of a new grassy viewing area to reduce the pressure on Henman Hill.

The other 38 new grass courts will not have permanent seats, but they greatly add to the capacity of a club that – at present – has 18 Championship grass courts and another 22 at the practice site on Aorangi Park.

The AELTC have already received many queries from locals asking whether these new courts might be made available for community use. Their response on Wednesday was broadly positive.

With regard to the 11 months of the year when the tournament is out of season, the AELTC have promised to create “a striking walk around the lake perimeter” and to offer “community access to areas of the public park”. They also say that they are “exploring [the possibility of] wider use of the grass courts after The Championships”.

Despite the large amount of extra land the capacity of the tournament will not increase enormously.

There will probably be a daily maximum of around 50,000 fans admitted to the grounds, once the new facilities are available, rather than the present figure of 42,000. During qualifying, the limit is expected to be set at 10,000.

Much of the new land used to belong to the now demolished Wimbledon Manor House, and was landscaped by Capability Brown in the 18th Century before being adapted into a golf course in 1898.

The AELTC now plan to edge back towards Brown’s vision. The serpentine lake in the centre of the site will expand. Two small streams – Margin Brook and Bigden Brook – are to be removed from their pipes and allowed to flow into the lake in a more natural fashion.

The tree population of the area now stands at 1,000, but is to be doubled. The plans speak of “a sense of space with sinuous flowing landform, large swathes of meadow and long views”. The lakeside walk, which is to involve boardwalks as well as paths, should be open to the public by 2026.

The AELTC say they have yet to determine when visitors to the Championships will be able to cross into the new area. But this promises to be a charming – and very sizeable – addition to the world’s greatest tennis tournament, without diluting Wimbledon’s essential mission statement of “Tennis in an English garden”.