It is best known as the venue for the Wimbledon Championships, the only Grand Slam tennis event still held on grass.

[4] Catherine, Princess of Wales, has been the patron of the club since 2016 (then the Duchess of Cambridge) when the then monarch Elizabeth II stepped back from a number of royal patronages.

The champion, Spencer Gore, opined that "Lawn tennis will never rank among our great games.

[13] The popularity of Frenchwoman Suzanne Lenglen was largely responsible for forcing the club to move to larger grounds at its present site in Church Road, Wimbledon, in 1922,[14] where its first championship was "plagued by rain each day".

During World War II The Championships were suspended but the club remained open with a much smaller staff, and was used for fire and ambulance services, British Home Guard, and a decontamination unit, and troops stationed nearby drilled on the main concourse.

At 5:20 p.m. on 11 October 1940, five 50-pound German bombs struck the grounds, demolishing 1,200 seats in Centre Court.

Shortly afterwards, the Millennium Building, which houses facilities for players, press, officials and members, was built on the site of the old No.1 Court.

In July 2023, Debbie Jevans became the first chairwoman of the board, succeeding Ian Hewitt at the end of the 2023 Wimbledon Championships.

A failed attempt was made to destroy the grounds in 1913, as part of the suffragette bombing and arson campaign.

During the years before the First World War, suffragettes, as part of their campaign for women's votes, carried out politically motivated arson and bombings across the country.

[21] On 27 February 1913, a suffragette woman "between the ages of 30–35" was arrested within the grounds, after being spotted by a groundsman climbing over a hedge at around midnight.

There is an inscription above the entryway to Centre Court which reads "If you can meet with triumph and disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same" – lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem If—.

It is a "folding concertina" made of 5,200 square metres of a translucent waterproof fabric that allows natural light to reach the grass, and opens or closes in under 10 minutes.

[28] Redevelopment work commenced in 2006, and Centre Court had no roof at all in place for the duration of the 2007 Championships.

[35] The Championships are run by a Committee of Management that consists of 12 club members and seven nominees of The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA).

In 2003, a long-standing tradition of Centre Court players bowing or curtseying to the Royal Box was discontinued by order of the Duke of Kent, with the exception of the Queen or the Prince of Wales's attendance.

[37] In December 2016, it was announced that the then Duchess of Cambridge would succeed the Queen as Patron of The AELTC and The Championships, effective January 2017.

[citation needed][38] According to Angela Buxton, the Jewish former British Wimbledon doubles champion, it also has led to her exclusion.

Buxton told New York Post reporter Marc Berman that she had been on the "waiting list" since she applied in the 1950s.