Friday 18th October 2024

The  Day of Special Interest held on Friday 18th October 2024 at The Warwickshire Country Club had three lectures on “Sport and Play – the ethos, architecture and artefacts of the British at play”.  

The first lecture was “A Healthy mind in a Healthy Body” – how the Victorians made us all jolly good sports – a light introduction to the subject, and the second lecture was: “Making a Stand – sporting architecture, list it or lose it?” – there are currently over 316,000 listed buildings in England, but only a tiny proportion of those are related to sports or recreation.

The third lecture, “A Load of Old Balls” – how has the design and manufacture of balls evolved? Why were some games eg. lawn tennis and ping pong made possible only in the mid-19th century and why are rugby balls such an odd shape?

The presenter was Simon Inglis who studied History and History of Architecture. He specialises in the history, heritage and architecture of sport and recreation.