Prior to the building of the first Warner stand, all accommodation for spectators at Lord’s was identified by a letter of the alphabet.
Running in order clockwise around the Ground, beginning with ‘A’ enclosure at the north end of the Pavilion. ‘A’ enclosure amounted to no more than a few rows of covered seating, but behind it stood the ‘coach mound’ - a raised area of grass lined with trees from which it was possible to watch the game from the comfort of your own carriage. The building of a modern stand in 1958 brought an end to this genteel tradition.
In naming the new stand, MCC decided to break with another tradition and honour a man whose connection with Lord’s spanned almost 70 years. There are few individuals who have made such a significant and wide ranging contribution to cricket as ‘Plum’ Warner. Warner captained MCC on its first overseas tour to Australia in 1903/04. He later served the Club as a Committee Member, Deputy Secretary, Trustee, President and became its first Life Vice-President in 1961. His 26-year playing career included 15 Tests for England and culminated in his captaining Middlesex to the County Championship in his final season, 1920. He later served as Tour Manager with the MCC team on the infamous Bodyline tour of 1932/33. He founded and edited The Cricketer magazine in 1921, among many other literary achievements.
The life of Pelham Warner traversed the ‘Golden Age’ of Victorian and Edwardian cricket and the brink of the modern age; likewise the first stand named after him witnessed an era of incomparable change, from before the birth of one-day cricket to the T20 Blast. Its successor, the new Warner Stand, offers a much-improved view for spectators, and increased accessibility. The stand’s height has been calculated to sit comfortably within the collection of buildings at Lord’s, and particularly with its neighbour the Grade II* listed Pavilion. Boasting a roof formed from translucent tensile fabric, supported on cantilevering American White Oak beams, solar thermal and photovoltaic roof panels incorporated to generate hot water and electricity, boreholes and ground source heat pumps and a rainwater collection and recycling system, the new Warner Stand is truly a building for the modern age.