Tonbridge School
High Street, Tonbridge,
Kent, TN9 1JP
Tonbridge School Centre for Sports and Media Opening, 13 June 2008
Date: 18/06/2008
Lord Coe, chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, opened the Tonbridge School Centre for Sports and Media on Friday 13th June, 2008 in the presence of a crowd of 1500 Tonbridge Friends, including Governors, past and present parents, OTs, staff and current boys. Fireworks, trumpets and champagne marked the celebrations of the realisation of a long term dream for Tonbridge.
The new £11 million centre is a landmark in national sporting provision and was an integral part of the successful bid by Tonbridge School to be recognized as an official training centre for the 2012 Olympics. With very easy access to the main East London Olympic site and over 4 years to go before the 2012 Olympics, Tonbridge is in a key position to attract overseas Olympic teams to the school for training purpose
The Centre contains a 25 metre six lane swimming pool with depths varying from 1.2m to 3.0m and a 5-court sports hall suitable for badminton, basketball, volleyball, hockey, five-a-side football or 5 lanes of cricket nets. The Centre also contains a challenging climbing wall with a variety of routes and natural features included in the design; a Multipurpose Room with sprung wooden floor suitable for classes of up to 60 people and marked out for fencing; a Fitness Suite with 30 stations comprising cardio-vascular and resistance equipment together with area for free weights as well as a classroom and social areas.
The Media Centre incorporates a fully proofed studio and control room where all boys will gain experience in a variety of multi-media processes to a professional standard. Both the swimming pool and sports hall have a training CCTV system to enable recording of sporting techniques or matches and there are two editing suites which will allow coaches to edit training film in order to replay to a team or single athletes footage to aid individual or team performance.
Tonbridge School is very grateful to all those who so generously gave towards the building of the Tonbridge School Centre.
 The Tonbridge School Centre |
 The Tonbridge School Centre |
 The Tonbridge School Centre |
 The Tonbridge School Centre, view from the Athletics Track |
 The Tonbridge School Centre, view from the Foundation Astro |
 Crowd and Building |
 Crowd and John Gibbs |
 Tom Shields, Chairman of the Tonbridge Centre Fundraising Campaign |
 The Cake |
 Jonathon Cohen, Chairman of the Tonbridge School Governors |
 Tim Haynes, Headmaster |
 Lord Coe officiallly opens the buildings |
 Fireworks (photograph copyright www.phoenixfireworks.co.uk) |
 Lord Coe unveils the opening plaque |
 John Coldman, James Underhill, Lord Moynihan, Lord Coe, Jonathan Cohen, Andrew Whittall |
 The Opening Plaque |
 Lord Coe advises Tonbridge Athletes |
 Fitness suite |
 Relaxing in the Cafe |
 Basketball |
 Sneaking a look |
 Table tennis |
 Swimming |
 Climbing wall |
 The Tonbridge School Centre Open |