Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club Grass Court Construction
April 2017
Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club is situated in the town of Eastbourne on the south east coast. The club, founded in 1881, is known world wide for the Eastbourne International, a tournament on the WTA tour and up until 2014 the ATP tour. Held since 1974, the grass court tournament is considered a warm up for Wimbledon which begins the following week. The club is home to a number grass courts one of which is housed in an 8000 seater stadium.
We were asked to construct a new Wimbledon specification court for the club and the LTA.
We excavated the formation through an existing grass area and car park. Lateral drains were cut into the formation and connected to a main drain. The main drain was connected to a silt trap outside of the court footprint.
Terram was laid across the formation, pipe installed and backfilled with gravel. A gravel carpet was laser levelled with the digger bucket. Following this the ring beam concrete was formed. The ring beam drain allows rainwater to run off when the court is covered.
A blinding gravel carpet was laser levelled, again with the excavator bucket. We then imported Surrey tennis loam. Each layer of loam was laser levelled, tracked in and keyed with the Graden to ensure a bond with the next layer.
The surface was re-lasered, stone raked and luted. 6:5:18 fertiliser applied and sown and the final surface sown with Limagrain MM50.
During the project a full irrigation system was installed.
