Treasure trove

A walk through the Wimbledon archives

Jul 15, 2025

Wimbledon is brimming with history.

You are reminded of it every step you take around the All England Club grounds. The statue of Fred Perry outside Centre Court; the plaque commemorating the longest match ever just outside Court 18 (11 hours and 5 minutes, when John Isner outlasted Nicolas Mahut in 2010); the chic Ralph Lauren ball kid outfits, which seem to have remained the same for decades; the Honours Board in the clubhouse. Even just in how the draws and order of plays are still manually changed each day by stewards, who climb up a ladder to make the physical updates with not a screen in sight.

Things do change of course — the electronic line calling system replacing line judges was the most controversial of those this year. Some other traditions could also be worth a rethink, like how the women’s event is still referred to as the “ladies’” draw.

But tradition is important to the AELTC, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.

Tucked just beyond Court 17, beneath a small merchandise shop, the greatest treasure trove in tennis is housed. Museum displays line the walls, with 1,000 varied items on permanent show: there are outfits worn by the likes of Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Roger Federer and Steffi Graf proudly displayed behind glass; the history of wheelchair tennis at Wimbledon is charted within the space too; and screens depict famous victories — like Andy Murray’s 2013 win, which ended a 77-year wait for a British men’s champion. There’s even the flower basket that was awarded to Maud Watson in 1884, her prize for winning the first ever championships for women.

Off to a side room, the Kenneth Ritchie Wimbledon Library is also located within the museum, and is the largest tennis library in the world with 10,000 books, journals, magazines and newspaper articles.

Bookshelves are lined with bulky volumes, loaded with significant newspaper clippings from every year the Championships have been held. There are magazines dating back to the 1920s, covering the tennis at Wimbledon, as well as ticket stubs from the days before apps and QR codes. Two-day Centre Court tickets in 1975, under the covered stand, would have set you back £6.60 including VAT (that’s about £70 in today’s money).

Some library archival pieces, including a vintage Centre Court ticket

It’s here that I meet Eleanor Thomas, a collections officer at the museum, a week before Wimbledon begins. I’m properly geeking out, and she is kind enough to answer lots of questions and show me around some of the behind the scenes areas, to give me an understanding of the work that goes into creating a tennis museum which needs to keep up with changing results and an evolving sport.

Thomas’s background is in museums, previously based in Edinburgh where she looked after Historic Environment Scotland’s archives. “Personally, I love sport, so when this came up it was a dream combination for me,” she says of taking up her role with Wimbledon five years ago.

Remarkably, including photographs, there are 1,075,000 items in the Wimbledon collection, which was first opened in 1977. Thomas’s team adds between 100 and 200 objects to it each championships, as mementos to what made that specific tournament unique.

To show me as much as possible, she takes me to what I can only describe as an Aladdin’s Cave for the keen tennis fan: the storeroom where the extensive collection of items owned by or loaned to the AELTC are kept.

We go through a back door out of the museum, I’m led down a long windowless corridor and eventually Thomas is unlocking the double doors to a small room full of air conditioning vents and exposed brick walls. The cold air hits me immediately (in what I learn is a specially temperature-controlled room) and lining every spare bit of wall space are hundreds of tennis rackets.

Dating all the way back to the 1870s and through to 2025, from heavy wooden rackets and natural gut string, to the light, graphite frames and nylon or polyester string modern styles. In the corner, hoisted up on the wall, there is even a 10-foot tall racket.

“I met the gentleman whose grandmother made it,” Thomas says. “She ran a shop, and clocked on that Dunlop was trying to make the biggest racket ever. She was having none of it and made this one herself that was even bigger, and I think there are only three. For me, it’s those personal stories behind the items.”

“I also like the ones that are really quirky, where people have tried to change the design,” she adds, pointing to a hexagonal frame. “People obviously vetoed the racket really quickly. They're like, that's not gonna work. I think people who visit really enjoy looking at them from a personal perspective as well. Like, ‘Oh, I remember I used to play with that’ or ‘we've got one of those in the attic’. It's those stories which I really enjoy.”

Thomas says ex-champions have been given tours of this place, and remembers in particular Pat Cash popping down for a gander and to donate a couple of his own rackets.

The room is kept at a cool temperature to preserve these artefacts, the majority of which have been used to play at Wimbledon. Some are donations, some are special rackets the AELTC have bid for in auction. Each racket has a small paper label, attached by string, denoting the date of use and the player who competed with it. Fittingly, I notice Mahut and Isner’s from 2010 are kept alongside one another.

“During the tournament, we carry out contemporary collecting — that's when you collect the recent past,” Thomas says. “We try and capture those key stories that have happened. It keeps the museum new, and it sort of shows how the sport is always changing. It will be players’ kit and equipment, and we try and get the rackets from them, but it can be quite tricky because they're very personal. We do work a lot with different teams during the tournament to acquire items. So the dressing room [staff] are great, they've got great relationships with players. They talk to them about the work that the museum does and why it's so important to have their heritage preserved and on display. The players are really kind of excited by that idea that items could be on display.”

Sometimes, the AELTC need to get involved in auctions to reclaim pieces of the tournament’s history: “We actually purchased Novak Djokovic's racket from his first Wimbledon win. He gave that to a member in the crowd, and then they later sold it at auction. We were lucky to get that at auction, and it added to that history of him and Wimbledon. The donations are often just used, you can see the grass stains on them. So they're really, really cool objects.”

Alongside the tennis rackets are badminton rackets, real tennis vintage frames and even some padel models. Any from pickleball yet, I ask? “No, not yet,” Thomas says with a laugh. “But it will probably be part of the history at some point, so maybe we’ll need to…”

Next, Thomas guides me through another door, and we move into a vast room. She apologises for the bits and bobs piled against the walls, as you might do when welcoming guests into your messy home. But this is hoarding of a special kind.

One standout piece is a deep green, wind-up ball thrower designed by Rene Lacoste. Then there are rows and rows of sliding, cage-like walls, where art and posters throughout the last two centuries are hanging. The styles are eclectic. There’s a life-like portrait of 1977 champion Virginia Wade, alongside a newspaper-style cartoon making light of the tricky, summer rain the AELTC have to contend with almost each and every year. One painting dating back to the early 1900s depicts a shirtless man posing with his racket. Then there are TFL advertising posters promoting the Championships date back decades.

“We’re trying to expand our fine art collection, depicting lawn tennis and players,” Thomas says as she walks me through. “A lot of our significant pieces of art are kept up in the clubhouse. It’s lovely for people to enjoy those.” The shirtless man didn’t quite make the cut for the clubhouse? No, but some of the “more humorous” pieces are “put in the toilets at the clubhouse, as we’ve got some really great cartoons,” Thomas says.

Everywhere you look there are more and more treasures. There’s a glass cabinet with dozens of kitsch trinkets: tennis ball teapots, cups and saucers with rackets as handles and glassware caricatures all lined up. “The Victorians were obsessed with tennis, so there are a lot of them,” Thomas says. “They’re quite fun. Our next temporary exhibition is going to be all about the history of food and drink at Wimbledon. So obviously the tea lawn, what people traditionally had at Wimbledon, getting a lot of the ceramics out, but also our partnerships and how they’ve changed over the years — like we used to have Coca Cola dispensers on the back of umpire chairs back in the day. Also, player nutrition and how that’s changed over time. Suzanne Lenglen used to have brandy between games. Now, players drink pickle juice!”

Then there’s the endless rails of white clothing covers, with hundreds of iconic tennis outfits kept safely inside of them. Labels with photographs of the garments are helpfully and methodically attached to each one. There’s Billie Jean King’s heavy-collared 1970s dress with a blue trim, designed by legendary tennis designer Ted Tinling. “They’re so amazingly tailored,” Thomas says, “and look as new. The details that he put into them, including how their serving arm sleeve would be bigger than the other arm, to give the player more room to move. Incredible.”

There’s Roger Federer’s famous cardigan, players’ sweat bands and visors galore. One label reads simply: “Henman’s Shorts.” Boxes are stacked above the rails with famous fancy dress outfits worn by punters to the grounds too — including the man who dressed as the men’s Wimbledon trophy, complete with a golden pineapple on his head: “I think a couple of these are loans, but a lot of people donate them. It's people's interactions with the game which is great for us to capture as well, how much people love Wimbledon. It's as much for the fans as it is for the players and us.”

As a final treat, we get an early peek at the newly renovated No. 1 Court walk-on, where players make their final quiet steps before coming out to the packed arena. Slick modern lighting lines the wide hallway, while wooden panelling keeps with the more traditional Wimbledon style, and the items on display are what stand out, commemorating shining moments on the second-largest show court at the AELTC. Andy Murray’s debut baggy kit from 2005 is on display, as is Emma Raducanu’s Nike dress from 2021. There’s Coco Gauff’s, from her memorable win over Venus Williams as a 15-year-old in 2019, and Tim Henman’s Davis Cup appearance at Wimbledon in 2007, the last match of his professional career.

How do they make decisions about what to prioritise putting on show? “We work on a five-year plan. We have a collecting strategy, asking questions like what our purpose is, what stories we want to be telling,” Thomas says. “That will shape what we collect year-round. Those items are dictated by themes or anniversaries, or moments that we want to explore in more depth in those temporary exhibition spaces.

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