It's just not Cricket

Click image above for a larger version of this panoramic view looking out from the new pavillion.
With the local cricket season now upon us, it's a good time to celebrate the marvellous new pavillion we have had built on the Higher Cricket Ground on the Common.
Cricket has been played on the Common for over 230 years, the first game being played in 1782 between Groombridge and Tunbridge Wells. In 1876 Lewis Luck formed a club known as Tunbridge Wells Juniors near the Nevill Ground. In 1806, following the opening of the Linden Park estate the club moved to the Lower Ground on the Common and changed their name to Linden Park Cricket Club. In 1898 the club moved to the present location on the Higher Ground, where it remains today and has been described as one of the best proportioned and picturesque in England. In the early years the Higher ground pitch was infamous for its terrible playing condition and in a match between the England XI, captained by W G Grace, and Australia in 1882, in which the visiting side were bowled out for 49 runs, it was reported "that fencing is required to keep the cows out”.
The Ground has seen many good sides including the Australians, West Indies, North and South of England, and Kent County - and many famous players including W G Grace, Frank Woolley, Leslie Ames, and the Nawab of Patavai who played for the Club as a young schoolboy. Colin Cowdrey CBE was a Vice-President.
Most local residents will know that we sadly lost the original 130-year-old pavillion a couple of years ago to a fire, but how many of you know that it’s not the first time that one of our cricket pavillions has been raized to the ground? Back in 1913, to be precise April the 11th, the Nevill Ground's pavillion was burned to the ground by suffragettes. Or so the media of the time would tell us. For even though firemen found a photograph of Emmeline Pankhurst accompanied by a copy of a suffragette newspaper and an electric lamp lying on the turf in front of the burnt out building, and during that same year several substantial attacks were carried out on buildings and organisations that were seen to discriminate against women, the Police never actually found sufficient evidence to prosecute the movement. 1913 was the same year Emily Davidson threw herself under the King's horse during the Derby.
Indeed the attack had an effect on the town but not the one the suffragettes had intended. Local people reacted angrily and the National League for Opposing Women's Suffrage reported a boom in membership after the fire. Local resident Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called the perpetrators "female hooligans" and said the action was like "blowing up a blind man and his dog". Times, it seems, haven't really changed.
Lets all hope that this great new addition to the Common lasts for hundreds of years and watches over many summer afternoons of local people sitting on the grass watching and listening to the crack of leather on willow.
I think we'll revisit the subject of Cricket soon with a visit to the Nevill Ground and also maybe a look into the story of the cricket ball and its connection with the local area. Stay tuned for that.

Comments

[Bruce Grant]

My grievance with the town council and their tax office!

http://www.kentishtowns.com/tunbridge_wells/index.php

[John Carlisle]

We visited your fair town a couple of days ago and enjoyed it immensely. You are rightfully proud. Your blog is very apt. I have taken the liberty of referencing it in my own humble account of our journeyings in this fair and pleasant land. Many thanks, John.

[Anke]

Heavens!!! I'll have to check that one out, thanks, Bruce. Hmm, hang on a minute, Cuger Brant? Bruce Grant? Coincidence?

[Bruce Grant]

There is a new book available at the Pantiles bookshop also on Amazon called Something Wicked This Way Comes..
It is written by a local author (Cuger Brant).
It is about a Flu Pandemic from Bird Flu, which has changed into a human strain and breaks out in ... Tunbridge Wells!!

[Bruce Elliott]

You have an amazing depth of knowledge about the town (or an amazing reference library!). Either way, I always look forward to your posts.

Looking forward to seeing what you have to say about the Nevill. On a minor note I thought it was sad that they lost the old score board not so long ago. I'll be down there soon taking the team photos for this year... maybe cover one or 2 matches for them later in the season.