Bowled over

From village green to country-house parkland, castle grounds and sandy beaches, Daniel Pembrey takes a tour of Britain’s best-loved cricket grounds

From beach to country-house parkland, Daniel Pembrey tours Britain’s best-loved cricket grounds

I’m standing at the crease of Norton St Philip’s village cricket ground in Somerset, padded up and ready to bat, wondering how it’s possible to play in such achingly picturesque surroundings. On one side is a 14th-century stone church, nestled among mature trees in glorious summer health. On the other, up a slight hill, is the George Inn—one of Britain’s oldest and finest, with a beer garden overlooking the pitch. Limestone buildings blend into the rolling hills, with swifts darting above. A wood pigeon coos and a sense of expectancy drifts past on the warm breeze; all that’s missing now is the rich thwock of a leather ball being struck well.

‘The setting can be distracting,’ accepts mark Finch, the chairman and backbone of the village cricket club. He’s involved in everything, from training the youth teams to organising Family Day (chief moneyearner for the club) and the end-of-season dinner, securing prizes for raffles and remaining on good terms with the local vicar. ‘The ball has been known to end up in the churchyard,’ confesses mr Finch. ‘We’ve had a few games in which play has stopped for cricketers to rummage among gravestones.’

There’s a similar combination of distracting setting and down-to-earth play at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, but with an added level of grandeur. Capability Brown’s romantic parkland, with its lakes and ha-has, offers some of the most beautiful views in Europe, not to mention the palace itself, a visual feast of honey-coloured stone and glinting gold ornaments. This backdrop, like an elaborate stage set, creates a magical depth of field for cricket matches played on the south lawn, such as the Foreign Office vs Commonwealth Secretariat game.

It also provides the backdrop for Blenheim Park Cricket Club—essentially a village team fielded from Woodstock (beside the park), going strong since before the Second World War.

‘Hello, what’s this?’ puzzles Stan Angol, the club’s vice-chairman. It’s Sunday morn-

ing, play begins at 1pm, with the visiting team arriving from Paris, and the petrol mower won’t start. Mr Angol runs a local property-maintenance business and is considered the go-to man for jobs such as this one. Andrew Shaw, club chairman, is already making contingency plans, enquiring whether the estate might make a mower available. Meanwhile, secretary David Hughes has been notified that the team is a player down—a hairdresser who has to work.

Tools are produced, the starter mechanism is disassembled and reassembled and the machine finally sputters to life. With relief in the air, the pitch is quickly mowed and Mr Angol goes over the other features in his care. The sight screens require regular repair and, at some point, will need replacing altogether. ‘PVC would be easier,’ he reflects, ‘but the Duke [of Marlborough] prefers wood. He likes the traditional look.’ The Bramble Bank match is played at low tide in the middle of the Solent each year

Just a few miles down the road lies Wormsley cricket pitch, conceived a quarter of a century ago by Sir Paul Getty, an American who loved England. Hidden in a Chiltern valley near the M40, there is, nonetheless, a sense of space and freedom here. Harry Brind—head groundsman at the Oval—laid out the pitch, which head groundsman Simon Tremlin has tended ever since.

The ground drops away on three sides and you can’t see a house from the crease, only vivid greenery, a red kite wheeling above and structures including a neatly thatched pavilion with a weathervane sporting the profile of commentator Brian Johnston.

‘Paul admired and wanted to support a vision of England as a bastion of honour and fair play,’ explains Lady Getty, his widow. ‘He was also a big sports fan. Living in London in the 1970s, baseball wasn’t available to him, so he began watching cricket at a time when players such as Bob Willis and Ian Botham were in their prime. Mick Jagger, a neighbour in Chelsea, would come round and watch Test matches with him.

‘When Paul bought Wormsley, he dreamt of creating his own ground. His love of the game and the inspirational people that cricket brought into his life saved him when times were a little bleak. He became great friends with several legendary figures from the sport.’

With a little help from those friends, Getty’s legacy lives on today, 14 years after his death, with Sir Paul Getty XI matches, charity games and top-class cricket in the shape of Minor Counties finals and England Ladies’ International matches.

In contrast to this place of greenery and freedom, at Bamburgh in Northumberland,

‘We’ve had a few games in which play has stopped for cricketers to rummage among gravestones

the castle looms heavily over the cricket pitch on an outcrop of volcanic rock. To one side lies two miles of unblemished sand; the village is on the other.

Maintaining the ground, made available to Bamburgh Castle Cricket Club by Lord Armstrong, is sport in itself for field master Ian Patterson and half a dozen team members, who spend Sunday mornings preparing the pitch. ‘The northerlies can come hammering off the sea and dry out the grass,’ explains Mr Patterson. ‘The sandy soil doesn’t help. We’ve laid Surrey loam—the kind used at Test grounds—but this is Nature at work. You can also be playing in bright sunshine one minute, dense fog the next.’

Although the weather keeps him guessing, Mr Patterson can at least rely on a 1926 Barford & Perkins roller, one of only two known to be working (the other is in Australia). ‘It gave out several years ago,’ he recalls. ‘We couldn’t get replacement parts, so a local lad fitted an engine from an old Ford Anglia—works pit pat.’

Some grounds offer charm, grandeur, magic or drama, but a visit to North Nibley, on the edge of the Cotswolds, approaches a quasi-religious experience. This isn’t because of the Tyndale Monument, visible from the crease (William Tyndale translated the Bible in the 16th century), but due to the cricket teas. For anyone still immune to the charms of the game, a tea at North Nibley should prompt a Damascene conversion.

Wynne Holcombe, the skipper’s mother and scorer, forms part of cricket tea ‘central command’ alongside Julia Taylor, the chairman’s partner, and Julie Collins, the secretary’s wife. If you’re lucky enough, you might enjoy fresh sandwiches, chorizo and black-pudding roll (‘disgustingly good,’ enthuses Mrs Holcombe), coffee-andwalnut cake, raspberry-and-cinnamon slices, lemon-and-lime drizzle cake, apricot crumble and the pièce de résistance, a fourtier Victoria sponge crammed with strawberries and fresh cream. Not to forget the tea itself—or a glass of ice-cold Pimm’s.

‘We tend to offer second helpings to the opposition if they’re in the field afterwards,’ says Mrs Holcombe with a mischievous smile—and North Nibley Cricket Club did win 14 out of 17 matches last year.

As I sit and watch the rhythm of play, joining in the occasional deep call from the field for an appeal or simply gaze at the warm Cotswold-stone village behind the bowler’s arm, the elegant Nibley house overlooking the pitch and the hazy vistas of the Severn Vale to the west, it’s hard not to wonder: would it be rude to go back for more?

‘You can be playing in bright sunshine one minute, dense fog the next