LOOKING BACK - February 2 edition

Rugby Recreation ground and the Ken Marriott Leisure Centre
The Ken Marriott Leisure Centre in the 1990sThe Ken Marriott Leisure Centre in the 1990s
The Ken Marriott Leisure Centre in the 1990s

After the mention of Rugby Recreation ground in our 1967 archive, I thought I’d continue the theme with our pictures this week. This first one is of the old Ken Marriott Leisure Centre. Once somewhere is redeveloped, it’s sometimes quite hard to remember how it was before. The centre, next to the rec, was built in 1974 and only made way for the new Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Centre in 2013. Our aerial view would have been taken in the early 1990s. You can just see the corner of Thornfield’s outdoor bowling green on the right , with the indoor club being the building at the bottom of the picture. In the top right are Rugby School sports pitches.

The postcard caption on the trees picture from our files says: ‘The Long Avenue, Recreation Ground, Rugby’. I’ve never heard it called that before, but it’s lovely to see the line of trees in their early days. They are still there, of course, but huge now, along what became the road through the rec in the late 1980s, Bruce Williams Way.

From the Advertiser 50 years ago - see cutting

What is now Bruce Williams Way must have been known as the Long AvenueWhat is now Bruce Williams Way must have been known as the Long Avenue
What is now Bruce Williams Way must have been known as the Long Avenue

February 3, 1967

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr P Mansell, the groundsman at Rugby Recreation ground in Hillmorton Road, surveys the damage wreaked by vandals during the weekend. The floor tiling of the bandstand has long since disappeared, but only once before has the structure been attacked in this senseless way.