Quintin Hogg Memorial Ground Update

7 February 2024

The first in a series of blog posts to keep you updated on developments in Chiswick

Works to upgrade Quintin Hogg Memorial Ground in Chiswick began last month, following our planning approval in December. When complete, the grounds will provide exceptional facilities for Upper and Prep School pupils as well as long standing sports club users, and the wider community. It’s an exciting time as we transform the neglected site and we look forward to welcoming everyone to the ground when it is ready. Until then there is a lot of work to do! As well as the upgrades to playing surfaces that you might expect with a redevelopment like this, you will also see the landscape transform in the coming months. We’ll keep you updated with a new series of blog posts to take you behind the scenes of the development and to discover more about the biodiversity, renovations and plans to involve the pupils in future plans.

Latest news

If you have been to watch your child play netball or hockey at Chiswick, you will probably have seen the changes to the tennis court area. The removal of the non-native leylandii around the courts has proved to be a challenging start to the project, and an emotive process. Following several years of neglect, these trees were overgrown beyond a manageable level and affecting the safety and quality of the courts. Their felling has provided the first, and possibly most visible, impact to the north-west of the site. We are working hard on our biodiversity and soft landscaping programmes that will see the site achieve a vastly improved end result.

The courts are due to be treated, repaired, and repainted, with new tennis posts and nets and new netball posts installed. The spectator experience will be vastly enhanced, with the courts beginning to feel much more part of the site due to the change of layout around their perimeter, including new fruit tree planting and an orchard management plan.

Biodiversity

Key to planning consent was our commitment to biodiversity at the ground. Our ambition is to create an oasis for flora and fauna surrounding the playing areas. We will be replanting more trees than we have lost, as well as wildflower areas, hedgerows and shrubs. We are also introducing hedgehog habitats, a maintenance programme for the orchard and, where possible, will be introducing swales (a green channel to support the effective absorption of rainwater into the ground). The biodiversity plans are one of the most exciting aspects of this development and we are looking at ways to involve pupils as soon as possible. More on this in our next blog.

Next steps

The next most visible change will be the implementation of the natural turf pitches from Monday 12 February onwards. This will involve the re-levelling and reseeding of the grass playing surfaces to the west of the site, creating new and improved football and rugby pitches, and enabling the reintroduction of cricket.

Whilst the active construction works will take around 6-8 weeks, the remaining period to the end of August will involve a delicately managed maintenance schedule to ensure that sport can gradually be reintroduced from September 2024 on this surface.

Coming Up

In our next blog we’ll have news about the ground-breaking 3G AGP pitch being installed later this year, more details on our biodiversity plans, plus an overview on renovations to the listed grandstand.

If you can’t wait until then, do take a look at our FAQs.

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