In 1947 George VI was on the throne and Clement Attlee was Prime Minister; Charlton Athletic won the FA Cup and Americans Jack Kramer and Margaret Osborne won the Men's and Women's Singles Titles, and Grimshaw Kinnear Ltd was formed.
The origins of Grimshaw Kinnear Limited, now trading as Grimshaw Group, go back to the 1930’s with John Grimshaw starting as a bulldozer owner-driver. Then in 1947 it was incorporated as a limited company with offices in Cheltenham’s famous Promenade.
The company built it's first two tennis courts in 1948 for Cheltenham College. Now with over 70 years’ experience in the construction of sports and play facilities and tennis courts in particular, and still in the same family ownership, the company is the oldest established tennis court constructor in the UK.
The Lawn Tennis Association recognised the company’s skills and abilities as one of the country's foremost court constructors when it was just one of six companies invited to form the Tennis Court Constructors Federation of Great Britain under LTA sponsorship in 1986.
The TCCF has since developed to become SAPCA (Sports and Play Construction Association) which now represents most forms of sports and play construction in the UK.
The company is still proud to be an active member of SAPCA and as such is bound by its codes of practice and construction requirements. Hence all the company’s systems conform with or exceed the SAPCA guideline specification requirements.
As a former finalist in the prestigious Contract Journal - UK Contractor of the Year Awards and winner of the Gloucestershire Business Awards for workforce development the company is proud of its traditional family business approach to trading and has an enviable record in developing long term trading relationships with customers, many measured in decades with traditionally some 75%-80% of turnover being repeat business.
The same family values have also created a loyal, dedicated, and skilled directly employed work force. Continuous long service is a well-established part of Grimshaw Group with many employees having 25, 30, 40 and even 55 years’ continuous service.
We deliberately limit the radius of our operation to within 45 miles of Cheltenham to ensure that we can maintain our traditional personal family business service, and as the “local” tennis court constructor being able to offer a full after sales and maintenance service.
In 2007 the company diversified to include on-line selling of sports equipment from leading UK manufacturers for most major sports at www.grimshawsports.co.uk and now this successful division sells equipment not only throughout the UK and Europe but to destinations as diverse as Afghanistan, Senegal and British Columbia.
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