Barn Elms Playing Fields

Barn Elms Playing Fields were formerly part of Church lands belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The manor house, known as Barn Elms, was once the mansion of Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth, which was destroyed by fire and demolished in 1949. In the 1770s the formal lake was enlarged into a serpentine shape. Some large plane trees date from the late C17th landscape, one of exceptional size that is listed as a Great Tree of London, one of a pair probably planted in 1680. Otherwise all that remains is the ornamental pond, the ice house on an artificial mound, and a lodge and avenue in Lower Richmond Road.

From 1883-1939 Barn Elms house was the club house of the Ranelagh Polo Club, founded in 1878 when it split off from the Hurlingham Club (q.v.). By 1894 Ranelagh was the world's largest polo club among whose members were prominent people from the military and royalty. Its facilities included 4 polo grounds, 10 croquet lawns, 2 tennis courts, 2 rowing lakes, and an 18-hole golf course, with an annual ladies' golf meeting hosted from the mid 1890s and from 1901-36 the International Cup was held here. Eventually the club's patronage waned, funding diminished  and it closed shortly before WWII, the polo grounds used for allotments in the Dig for Victory campaign. The clubhouse burnt down in 1954, the lake was drained, and the site converted as playing fields. Trees now cover the area which was previously occupied by the clubhouse and its gardens; an athletics track was laid out on top of the drained land, reclaimed from the old lake. The entire site now constitutes two separately-operated sports facilities with little reminders of the Ranelagh Club.

Although the grounds were acquired for playing fields in 1949, their use for sport is historic. In 1891 Barn Elms Park became the base for Queens Park Rangers, when their home ground in Brondesbury was unusable.  It is currently the home ground for Barnes Football Club (FC), who played here in the C19th but whose original home ground was Barnes Green (q.v.). Other clubs currently playing here include Barnes Eagles FC, Stonewall FC, Barnes RFC, London French RFC and London Exiles RFC.

In 1957 Barn Elms School Sports Centre was built by the LCC Architects Department east of the lake, part of its policy of laying out sports fields in and around London so that secondary school children could play games on grass. A plan for a multi-million pound sports complex here was scrapped in 1985. The site had a 2m high close-boarded fence along Rocks Lane, which in 1989 LB Richmond proposed to replace to provide an open view of the parkland, but this initially provoked an outcry that money could be better spent on facilities such as toilets and changing rooms. At the north of the site within a small woodland area is a campsite for the Scouts and Guides.

The playing fields were threatened with closure when plans for commercial development were proposed in 2005, the fields to be replaced by housing and a private health and racquets club. This was strenuously fought by the local community who petitioned Richmond Council and in 2008 raised £2m in funding, setting up Barnes Vision. The future of the playing fields was secured when the Barn Elms Sports Trust (BEST) was created, which in 2013 was awarded the contract to manage the site, with a Deed of Dedication to protect the fields for public use for the next 199 years. The site continues to support the local community, providing playing fields and facilities for a variety of local schools, sporting teams and community groups. A non-profit sporting charity, BEST's Board of Trustees is made up from volunteer members of the community.