CRICKET


Cricket has been played ‘in the back garden’ of one of England’s foremost stately homes for nearly 300 years. Neville Johnson paid a mid- winter visit to a village club whose ground is one of the oldest active venues in the country. It is one of only one hundred clubs to feature in Remarkable Village Cricket Grounds, published last year


S


ir Philip Sidney has been described as the ultimate Renaissance man. Some say, if cricket had been played in the 16th century he would have been


a CB Fry, the late-Victorian and Edwardian academic, writer and sports star who was good at everything. Sir Philip would have captained England at cricket if there had been such a thing, so said author Pete Langman in The Country House Cricketer. As it was, he was a celebrated poet and


scholar, Elizabethan courtier, and died a hero at the age of thirty-one fighting for Queen and country. He was the first commoner to be honoured with a state funeral. He was also owner of Penshurst


Place in Kent, which Henry VIII had gifted to his father. I’m here on this chill January Sunday morning to get a feel of the history that pervades this lovely village cricket ground and talk to its secretary-cum- groundsman Jake Cheeseman. Surely, few - if any - village cricket clubs have a more impressive backdrop than Penshurst Park Cricket Club. Penshurst Place, first built in the mid-14th


century, has a stately presence not far beyond the boundary along one side of the ground. It is acknowledged as one of the finest examples of a fortified medieval manor house in England. It was a favourite hunting lodge used by Henry VIII, and conveniently close to Hever Castle, the


PC February/March 2019


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