You can book a public tennis court in Bath for £6 an hour, or play directly beneath the Royal Crescent for £12, with no membership, no waiting list and nothing to join. Book online, get a gate code, turn up.
That's worth stating plainly, because if you search "tennis in Bath" you'll mostly find clubs: annual fees, membership packages, coaching programmes. Visitors reasonably conclude that tennis here means belonging to something. It doesn't. Bath has three sets of public park courts you can book by the hour, one of them in Royal Victoria Park with the Royal Crescent as your backdrop, and the cheapest of them costs less than a coffee and a bun for each player. We checked every price in this guide in August 2026.
One correction before we start, because it trips people up: the courts by the Royal Crescent are not the cheapest in the city. That title belongs to Sydney Gardens and Alice Park. Here's how it all fits together.
The £6 courts: Sydney Gardens and Alice Park
Bath and North East Somerset Council's park courts are run under a scheme called Tennis@thePark, managed by Wesport (the West of England Sport Trust). It covers 14 courts across three sites: Sydney Gardens (4 courts), Alice Park on the London Road side of town (6 courts), and Keynsham Memorial Park (4 courts) if you're heading towards Bristol.
The deal is the same at all three. Pay and play costs £6 per court per hour, booked online through the Tennis@thePark ClubSpark page. Pay, get an access code for the gate, play. If you'll come more than a handful of times, an annual household membership costs £40 (£35 concessions) and after that every booking is free, for everyone in your house. Seven or eight visits and it's paid for itself.
Sydney Gardens is the one to pick if you're visiting. It's a Georgian pleasure garden ten minutes' walk from the Abbey, the park Jane Austen lived opposite and walked in, and the four tarmac courts were refurbished as part of the garden's restoration. Playing tennis where Austen took her turns about the garden is a better story than most paid attractions in town, and it costs £6. There's more like this in our guide to things to do in Bath.
The booking rules are worth knowing: slots are one hour, you can book two back to back, a maximum of four bookings in any 7-day period, and up to 7 days ahead. If you book and don't turn up without cancelling, the system bans you from booking for a week. Fair enough.
Neither site has floodlights as far as we could confirm, so treat these as daylight courts. In August that means playing until 8pm or so; in December it means a 4pm cut-off.
Royal Victoria Park: tennis under the Royal Crescent
Photo: exceltennisbath.co.uk
The courts in Royal Victoria Park sit beside the Royal Pavilion on Royal Avenue, a two-minute walk from the Royal Crescent lawn. They're no longer a book-through-the-council operation: they're run by Excel Tennis Bath, a coaching business, as a pay-and-play venue called Excel Tennis in the Park. No membership required.
Prices, checked on Excel's own site in August 2026: outdoor courts are £12 an hour off-peak (weekends, and weekdays before 5pm) and £14 an hour peak (weekday evenings). In summer there are 6 hard courts, 4 of them floodlit. In winter, domes go up over four courts and they become Bath's only city-centre indoor tennis, at £17 an hour off-peak and £20 peak. Booking is through their ClubSpark page (clubspark.lta.org.uk/ExcelTennisBath), and courts run to 9 or 10pm on weekdays.
So no, it's not the cheapest court time in Bath. But £12 to hit balls a few hundred metres from the most photographed terrace in Britain, bookable from your phone the same morning, is still one of the better-value hours in the city centre. Excel also runs group coaching, a full junior programme, and has added outdoor pickleball courts at the park. If padel is more your thing, that's a separate sport and a separate guide: Padel near Bath.
The comparison
| Venue | Courts and surface | Price | Booking | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney Gardens | 4 tarmac | £6/hr, or free with £40/yr household membership | Tennis@thePark (ClubSpark) | No floodlights confirmed; max 4 bookings per week |
| Alice Park | 6 tarmac | £6/hr, same £40/yr membership | Tennis@thePark (ClubSpark) | Café and playground in the park |
| Excel Tennis, Royal Victoria Park | 6 hard (4 floodlit); 4 domed indoor in winter | £12–£14/hr outdoor; £17–£20/hr indoor | clubspark.lta.org.uk/ExcelTennisBath | Floodlights; pickleball too; next to the Royal Crescent |
| Bath Tennis Club | 4 macadam + 2 floodlit AstroTurf | Membership: £291/yr adult (£169 under-25s) | bathtc.co.uk | Members' club; free community sessions in spring/summer |
| University of Bath STV | 8 indoor + outdoor courts | Pay-and-play; price unpublished, see below | 01225 386339 / teambath.com | The serious indoor option |
Bath Tennis Club: the club next to the park
Photo: bathtc.co.uk
Here's the confusing bit of Bath tennis geography: Bath Tennis Club sits on Park Lane, on the western edge of Royal Victoria Park, a few hundred metres from Excel's public courts. Two sets of courts, same park, completely different systems. The club dates from 1880 and has 4 resurfaced macadam courts plus 2 LED-floodlit AstroTurf courts.
It's a members' club: a full adult membership is £291 a year (or £34 a month), young adults 18 to 25 pay £169, off-peak membership is £208, and a family package is £585. Against those numbers, the £40 Tennis@thePark household membership shows you what the public scheme is really worth.
There's no advertised pay-per-visit rate, but the club does run free community play sessions in spring and summer for anyone in Bath who wants to pick up a racquet. If you're local and club tennis appeals (organised social play, teams, a bar), it's a friendly place to start. If you just want an hour of tennis on holiday, walk past it to the public courts.
Indoor and wet-weather tennis: the university
When it rains for a week, which in Bath it will, the answer is the Sports Training Village at the University of Bath, up the hill in Claverton Down. It's a genuine national-standard facility (the GB Pro-Series has been played here) with 8 indoor courts plus outdoor courts, and it's open to the public on a pay-and-play basis, not just students.
The one thing we could not confirm is the current public hourly rate: Team Bath doesn't publish a straightforward price list for casual tennis hire, and we won't print a number we haven't verified. Book or check prices on 01225 386339 or via teambath.com before you make the trip. The 20-minute bus ride up (U1 or U2 from town) is the other cost to factor in.
Between October and April, Excel's domed courts in Victoria Park are the closer indoor option at £17 to £20 an hour.
How to actually turn up and play
No racquet? Sports Direct on Southgate Street sells cheap ones, and Excel can sort equipment at the park pavilion; the Tennis@thePark sites have no staff on site, so bring everything including balls. Book Sydney Gardens or Alice Park before you walk over rather than gambling on a free court: summer evenings and weekend mornings go first, but a Tuesday 10am in August was wide open when we checked.
If you've got children in tow, Alice Park is the smart pick: there's a playground and a good café in the same park, so one adult can play while the other does juice and swings. More on that trade-off in Bath with kids. And if the courts are booked out, Excel's pickleball courts in Victoria Park take walk-up interest and a shorter learning curve than tennis.
FAQs
How much does it cost to play tennis in Bath?
From £6 an hour on the public park courts at Sydney Gardens and Alice Park, booked through Tennis@thePark. Courts at Royal Victoria Park (Excel Tennis) cost £12 to £14 an hour outdoors. A £40 annual household membership makes all Tennis@thePark bookings free.
Do I need to be a member to play tennis in Bath?
No. The Sydney Gardens, Alice Park and Royal Victoria Park courts are all pay-and-play with online booking and no membership. Only Bath Tennis Club on Park Lane requires membership, from £291 a year for a full adult package.
Are there indoor tennis courts in Bath?
Yes, two options. The University of Bath Sports Training Village has 8 indoor courts open to the public pay-as-you-go (call 01225 386339 for current prices, which aren't published online). In winter, Excel Tennis puts domes over four courts in Royal Victoria Park, at £17 to £20 an hour.
Can you play tennis next to the Royal Crescent?
Yes. Excel Tennis in the Park runs 6 hard courts by the Royal Pavilion in Royal Victoria Park, a short walk from the Royal Crescent, at £12 an hour off-peak with no membership needed. Four courts are floodlit.
Which are the cheapest tennis courts in Bath?
Sydney Gardens and Alice Park, at £6 per court per hour, or effectively free after the £40-a-year Tennis@thePark household membership. Bookings are capped at four one-hour slots per week.
Is there anywhere to play pickleball or padel in Bath?
Excel Tennis has outdoor pickleball courts in Royal Victoria Park. There's no padel in central Bath yet; see our guide to padel near Bath for the closest courts.