Victoria Pleasure Gardens, Burgess Hill
Our story
Forged by community
Foundry Padel Club now carries that idea forward: a new destination for movement, community and wellbeing, rooted in the same part of town where people once came together to play.
Our Story
That history gives Foundry Padel Club its starting point
Victoria Pleasure Gardens, Burgess Hill
The Victoria Pleasure Gardens opened in Burgess Hill in 1897. For more than four decades, until the Gardens closed in 1939, people travelled from across Sussex and beyond to meet, play and spend time together.
The Gardens included a boating lake, swings, roundabouts, skating, cycling and a switchback railway: an early roller-coaster-style ride that carried visitors above the lake. It was a place built around movement, sociability and shared leisure; a destination where the town came alive through recreation, sport and community.
After the Gardens closed, the landscape changed. Over time, the former leisure grounds became part of Burgess Hill’s expanding industrial estate, including the area now around Consort Way.
Transformation, making and renewal.
Today, on a modern industrial site in the same part of Burgess Hill, Foundry Padel Club is creating a new kind of social sports club: one shaped by padel, wellness, hospitality and human connection.
The Foundry name reflects that ambition. It speaks to transformation, making and renewal. It suggests a place where people are shaped by what they practise, who they meet and the habits they build over time.
Foundry Padel Club exists to bring people together through sport, movement and shared experience. A club designed not only around padel courts, but around the wider rhythms of active life: training, coaching, reformer Pilates, golf practice, friendly competition, recovery, coffee and conversation.
In that sense, Foundry Padel Club continues a local story rather than inventing one. Burgess Hill has already known what it means for leisure to become part of a place’s identity. Foundry Padel Club now carries that idea forward: a new destination for movement, community and wellbeing, rooted in the same part of town where people once came together to play.
The Family Behind Foundry Padel Club
Behind Foundry Padel Club is the Vans Agnew family, a local Sussex family with a genuine love of sport, padel and the communities that grow around them.
The building was part of the family business on the Victoria Estate, so the project began with a place they already knew well. After the original building was lost to fire, the family faced a choice: simply replace what had gone, or use the rebuild as an opportunity to create something with a different purpose.
They chose the second path.
As passionate padel players themselves, the Vans Agnew family saw in the sport exactly the qualities they wanted Foundry Padel Club to represent. Padel is active, social, easy to pick up and welcoming to people of different ages and abilities. It brings beginners and experienced players onto the same court, often with as much laughter as competition.
That spirit shaped the vision for the Club: a place where people can play, get active, meet friends, enjoy a coffee and feel genuinely welcome from the moment they arrive.
The building may have started the story, but the community will shape what Foundry Padel Club becomes.
The
Foundry Way
Foundry Padel Club was created to turn a rebuilt space into a community, bringing together sport, movement, wellbeing and social connection under one roof.
The Foundry Way is how that purpose becomes real. It shapes the welcome people receive, the standards we protect, the choices we make and the kind of club we want to build with Burgess Hill.
Belonging
Comes First
People should feel they belong from the moment they arrive, regardless of dress code, playing level, age or disability.
Participation Should
Be Opened Up
Padel should reach beyond those already playing. Foundry Padel Club will work with coaches, local schools and community partners to help more women, younger people, beginners and disabled players feel confident stepping onto court.
Fair Pricing
Protects Access
Padel should be something people can return to regularly, not a rare treat. As a family-run business, Foundry Padel Club can take a longer view: pricing the sport fairly and keeping access open.
People Should
Feel Known
The Club should feel personal, not scripted. A small, attentive team can recognise regulars, welcome new faces, make introductions and help people feel comfortable quickly.
Energy Should
Feel Welcoming
Foundry Padel Club should feel lively, social and full of activity, but never intimidating, laddish or uncontrolled. The Club should feel like itself at every hour, from morning play to evening sessions.
Everyone Shapes
The Club
Foundry Padel Club is pay-and-play, but it is still a community. Everyone who plays, visits, coaches, works or gathers here helps shape the atmosphere through the way they behave, include others and look after the space.
Forged by community
Community is something
we create together
That is The Foundry Way: a club shaped by the people who use it and built around the belief that community is something we create together.
Foundry Padel Club
Find Us
Foundry Padel Club
Consort Way
Burgess Hill
RH15 9TJ
- Open in google maps
- 01444 509009
- reception@foundrypadel.co.uk