Peppermint Grove

Peppermint Grove’s courts lie in Manners Hill Park, on the Swan River beside Freshwater Bay. The land was once Edward Keane’s cow paddock; the Crown bought it in 1899 and made it a public park, and the club plays on a leased part of the reserve. Its pavilion, dating from 1935 and associated with the architect Sir Talbot Hobbs, is on the local heritage list.

Perth is separated from Victoria’s grass culture by the width of a continent, and its maintenance challenge is more formidable: summer temperatures regularly above thirty-five degrees and rain that falls almost entirely in winter. Keeping grass in competitive condition through the season takes intensive irrigation and careful choice of grass.

Peppermint Grove is the riverside club of Western Australia’s grass tradition, alongside North Perth and Bridgetown in the south-west. It shows the English colonial model transplanted to the far side of the world and made to work in a climate that argues against it.