Swiss Cottage Badminton Hall: Four Courts Beside the Library

Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre is the sports half of one of north-west London's best-known civic sites. It stands next to the 1964 Swiss Cottage Library, and Better runs it for Camden. Most people come for the eight-lane pool or the gym, but upstairs there is a four-court sports hall that takes badminton bookings in 40 and 60 minute blocks. For anyone living around Finchley Road, Belsize Park or South Hampstead, it is the most central place to rent a court without joining a club.

The site has been about public sport and learning since the early 1960s, when Sir Basil Spence designed a library and a sports centre with swimming baths as a matching pair. The library survives and remains one of the area's architectural landmarks, opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 10 November 1964. The original sports centre did not last. It was demolished as part of a wider redevelopment, and a new leisure centre designed by Sir Terry Farrell took its place, opening in March 2006 with the rest of the scheme finishing in 2007.

That history explains the feel of the building today. It is not a converted school gym or a church hall with lines painted on the floor. The centre was built from scratch to share a public square with the library, and it carries the same idea that a neighbourhood should be able to swim, read and play sport on one site. Arriving from Swiss Cottage station, you pass the library's curved concrete front and walk straight into the glass entrance of the sports building.

Better describes the hall as a 4-court sports hall used for basketball, table tennis, badminton, pickleball and more, with all of them available to book for 40 and 60 minute sessions. In practice the length of your badminton slot depends on when you play. The price list states peak-hour courts run for 40 minutes and off-peak courts run for 60 minutes, at the same fee. A weekday daytime game therefore gives you a full hour on court, while an evening booking is shorter but easier to fit around work.

Four courts is a modest number, so the hall fills up at popular evening times and Saturday mornings. Players who come regularly tend to book as soon as their preferred slot appears on the Better app. Because the hall also hosts pickleball, basketball and table tennis, you may end up next to a very different game, and the noise level rises when basketball shares the space. Bring your own court shoes, as the sports hall floor needs clean, non-marking soles.

The centre's published prices list one adult badminton rate for any time of day. A court costs £21.95 for non-members, £14.95 for pay-as-you-go members and £6.45 at the concession rate. Because the fee is per court rather than per player, a doubles four splits the non-member price to roughly £5.50 each, which makes it one of the more reasonable ways to play in this part of London. Pay-as-you-go membership brings the court close to £3.75 per head for a doubles group.

If you arrive without equipment, the price list shows badminton rackets at £2.65 to hire and shuttlecocks at £2.25 to buy. Poolside and gym lockers cost 30p, using tokens bought from a contactless token machine, so there is no need to carry coins. For comparison, the same list shows adult squash at £20.90 for non-members and £15.35 for members, so a badminton court booked with three friends is clearly the better-value racket sport in the building.

For the week commencing 19 October 2026, Better lists the centre as open Monday to Friday from 6am to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 8pm. The gym follows similar hours, closing at 5:30pm on Saturdays, while the main pool and the teaching pool have their own timetables. Different parts of the building can keep slightly different hours, and the sports hall is sometimes given over to classes and children's activities, so book your court ahead.

The smartest booking is an off-peak weekday court, because the same £21.95 fee buys sixty minutes rather than forty. If you can only play after work, aim for the first or last evening slot, when the hall is usually calmer. Weekend afternoons are another good option, since the centre stays open until 8pm on Saturday and Sunday and many families have left by then. Afterwards you can head to the sauna and steam rooms, which run on a separate published timetable.

The library next door is worth a look before or after your game, even if you only walk through the foyer to see Spence's interior. Swiss Cottage Library is at 88 Avenue Road, and the open square between the two buildings holds a small market on some days. Hampstead Theatre is on the same site on Eton Avenue, so an evening game can easily become dinner and a show without moving more than a few minutes.

For something more relaxed, the Ye Olde Swiss Cottage pub at 98 Finchley Road is the chalet-style building that gave the area its name. Walking up Fitzjohn's Avenue takes you into Hampstead village and towards the Heath, while the O2 Centre at 255 Finchley Road has a cinema, restaurants and a supermarket for a quick post-match meal. Belsize Park's cafes on Haverstock Hill are a short walk east.

Address: Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre, Adelaide Road, London NW3 3NF. The nearest station is Swiss Cottage on the Jubilee line, which exits right beside the centre, and South Hampstead on the Overground is a short walk. Hours for the week of 19 October 2026: Monday to Friday 6am to 10pm, Saturday and Sunday 8am to 8pm. Badminton: £21.95 non-member, £14.95 pay-as-you-go member, £6.45 concession, per court.

Book through the Better website or app by choosing Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre and the badminton activity. Peak slots last 40 minutes and off-peak slots last 60 minutes. Bring non-marking court shoes and a water bottle. Rackets can be hired at reception for £2.65. If you are new to the area and looking for regular partners, the courts here make a good meeting point for a group from across Camden, as the station sits on the doorstep.