Beverley Ground
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| Location | Canterbury, Kent | ||||
| Establishment | 1841 (first recorded match) | ||||
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As of 9 September 2010 Source: Ground profile | |||||
The Beverley Ground was a cricket ground in Canterbury used between 1840 and 1846. It played an important role in the development of cricket in England as the home of the Beverley Cricket Club and their Canterbury Cricket Week, the oldest cricket festival in England. The ground was on the Sturry road in east Canterbury, in the vicinity of where the ASDA supermarket now stands. The name may also refer to the club's previous ground at St Stephen's in west Canterbury.
History
Some of the earliest references to cricket are found in Kent and teams from the county dominated the game between 1830 and 1850,[1] with great players of the time such as Alfred Mynn, Fuller Pilch, Nicholas Wanostrocht ("Felix"), Ned Wenman and William Hillyer. In the 1830s they were based at the Town Malling Club (now West Malling) in West Kent and financially supported by a group of gentry led by Thomas Selby. Meanwhile, in 1835 John and William Baker started the Beverley Cricket Club at their family estate in Canterbury, in East Kent. They played on the Beverley Meadow in the St Stephen's district of the city, and Ye Olde Beverlie Inn served as their clubhouse. In 1839 they held their first Cricket Week, which drew 4,000 spectators. The social scene was an important part of the festival; some cricketers formed the Canterbury Old Stagers to provide entertainment in the evenings of the Cricket Week and they claim to be the oldest extant amateur dramatic company in the world.
The following year they moved to a new ground, described as "a field near the Cavalry Barracks".[2] At the time there was a complex of military facilities off the Sturry road on the east side of Canterbury, between Tourtel Road and Old Park Road. The Cavalry barracks were the easternmost of these, centred on what is now the TA depot, so the cricket ground would have been somewhere near the present location of the ASDA supermarket.
Around this time the Beverley became the East Kent Cricket Club[2] and the best professionals in Kent began to play in Canterbury. The first first-class match at the ground took place on 10 August 1841, when an England XI unexpectedly defeated a Kent XI by 74 runs in "the crack game of the season".[3] Kent County Cricket Club was formed on 6 August 1842. From 1842 until 1846 there were two first-class games during Cricket Week, the professionals of Kent would take on an England XI, and the Gentlemen of Kent played the Gentlemen of England in an amateur game.[4] Between 1842 and 1845 the Kent professionals played a warm-up match at the ground against another county in late June.
In 1847 cricket in Canterbury moved to the St Lawrence Ground in the south of the city, and the Beverley Ground appears to have not been used after that date.
References
- ↑ Birley, Derek (2003). A Social History of Cricket. Aurum Press. p. 80.
- 1 2 Altham, Harry Surtees; Swanton, Ernest William (1963). A History of Cricket, Volume 1. Allen & Unwin. p. 78.
- ↑ Carleton, John William (1841). "The Sporting review". pp. 214–5.
- ↑ First-Class Matches played on Beverley Ground
External links
Coordinates: 51°17′24″N 1°05′57″E / 51.28992°N 1.09919°E
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