Twickenham Stadium

Sold-out Test matches against New Zealand and South Africa at Crystal Palace convinced the Rugby Football Union of the benefit of owning its own ground. The committee member William Williams and the treasurer William Cail led the purchase, in 1907, of a 10.25-acre market garden at Twickenham for £5,500 12s 6d. The first stands went up the following year. Archibald Leitch was the ground's architect. Cabbages were among the vegetables grown on the site before the purchase, and the ground is known affectionately as the Cabbage Patch.

After further spending on roads, the first match came on 2 October 1909, Harlequins against Richmond, and the first international on 15 January 1910, England against Wales, with the ground holding at most 20,000.

During the First World War the ground was used for grazing cattle, horses and sheep. King George V unveiled a war memorial there in 1921, the year a stand was built above the northern terrace with workshops underneath, and the first Middlesex Sevens was played there in 1926. In 1927 the East Stand was extended, taking capacity to 12,000, and the Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge came to Twickenham for the first time. A new West Stand of 1932 gave the RFU offices, and the union made the ground its home.

On 19 March 1938 BBC Television broadcast the England–Scotland Calcutta Cup match from Twickenham, the first rugby match shown live on television. To mark 50 years of the ground, in 1959, a combined England-Wales side beat Ireland and Scotland by 26 points to 17.

The South Terrace closed in 1965 with structural failings, a new stand proving cheaper than a repair; permission was refused after objections from local residents and granted only in 1978. The terrace was rebuilt as the South Stand in 1981. The North Stand came down in 1989 and reopened, extended, in 1990 to a Husband & Co design; the East and West stands followed after the 1992 Five Nations, all three built by Mowlem. The rebuilding was complete in 1995, with 75,000 seats and no terracing left.

Permission for a further South Stand, sought in 2002, arrived in December 2004, and work began in June 2005 — raising capacity to 82,000 and adding a 156-room Marriott hotel. The old stand was demolished that July, and the festivities planned to mark it were cancelled in the wake of the 7 July bombings in central London. The seating, begun by Mowlem, was completed by Carillion on 5 November 2006, in time for England to lose heavily to New Zealand in that autumn's internationals.

England came to the last match of the 1988 Five Nations having lost 15 of their previous 23 championship games, and trailed Ireland 0–3 at half-time. The second half brought six tries and a 35–3 win. Three were scored by Chris Oti, a black player who had made a reputation that season as a speedy left winger. Boys from the Benedictine school Douai sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" at each try, as they did at their own school games, and by Oti's hat-trick the song was heard around the ground. It has been sung at England home matches since.

Australia beat England 12–6 in the 1991 Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham, which had also held England's pool A matches. Both semi-finals of the Welsh-hosted 1999 tournament were played there, among them France's 43–31 defeat of New Zealand. Under Clive Woodward the ground became known as Fortress Twickenham through a run of 19 unbeaten home matches from October 1999, ended by defeat to Ireland in 2004. The 2015 final was staged at Twickenham, England again being the host nation.

The East Stand was upgraded into 2018, adding six floors of event space and match-day hospitality and completing the roof. It ran over budget on safety measures meant to make the structure capable of withstanding a bomb attack, and on fireproofing and cladding work following the Grenfell Tower fire. Just Stop Oil protesters came onto the pitch and began to vandalise the surface during the 2023 Premiership Rugby Final, and were arrested. On 5 August 2024 the stadium announced a ten-year sponsorship agreement with Allianz, taking the name Allianz Stadium Twickenham from that September.

The Rugby Football Union owns and operates the ground and has its headquarters there. The World Rugby Museum inside the stadium covers the global game and holds an England jersey from the first rugby union international, against Scotland in 1871. Twickenham was one of eight venues for the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup and staged the final on 27 September 2025.