The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum is the world’s largest museum devoted to tennis. It was established in 1977 and is housed on the grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis Club where the Wimbledon Grand Slam event is held every year.
What to see at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum
There are over 20,000 artefacts in the museum’s collection including tennis equipment, players memorabilia, trophies and medals. The oldest artefacts in the museum date as far back as 1555.
The museum’s multimedia exhibits include a 200º screen showing a film about the science of tennis and an exhibit where a ghost-like figure of John McEnroe takes you through off-limits areas of the centre.
Another highlight of the museum is CentreCourt360, a viewing platform that lets you experience Centre Court with multimedia touchscreen computers.
A visit to the museum also includes a short ten-minute visit to Centre Court. Centre Court tours depart every hour.
The museum also hosts a programme of temporary exhibitions with the current exhibition (running until 3 February 2019) centred on croquet, which was the first sport to be played at Wimbledon.
The Wimbledon Tour Experience
Guided tours of the All England Lawn Tennis Club depart from the museum. The 90-minute tours give you access to Centre Court, the press interview room and the players’ restaurant and terrace.
Tours are conducted by knowledgeable guides who give you interesting background information and show you Centre Court as well as areas not normally accessible to the public including the media centre, the BBC studio, the player’s entrance and the main press interview room.
The Wimbledon Tour Experience is an optional extra that can be bundled with the museum admission, although holders of a valid London Pass get free access to both the museum and the tour.
Visiting the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum
The Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum is located on the grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Access to the museum is via Gate 4.
Bus 493 connects the museum with Southfields and Wimbledon stations with services running every 10–12 minutes throughout the day.
Your admission charge includes a 90-minute guided tour of the museum and you can also take an audio tour of the museum. Audio tours are available in English, Croatian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
If you only visit the museum, you can see everything in a couple of hours, but you can spend almost four hours here if you go for the full package: the museum (following the full audio tour), the 10-minute Centre Court tour (which is included in the museum entry) as well as the full 90-minute Wimbledon Tour Experience.
The museum is open later during the Championships, although tours do not operate during this period.
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