FIELD OF DREAMS
BOOK REVEALS DAYS WHEN KNEPP CASTLE HOSTED CRICKET
39
This is the only known photo of a Shipley/Knepp Castle CC XI, taken some time in the 1880s.
Local author David Boorman has written 'A History of Cricket at Knepp Castle’. The book lays out the history of country house cricket at the estate in rich and fascinating detail. Here, David offers a glimpse into the story…
Were anybody on the average Horsham omnibus asked what springs to mind when they think of Knepp Castle, many people might say 'rewilding.' In 2001 the current owner, Sir Charles Burrell and his wife, the award-winning author, travel writer and conservationist Isabella Tree, decided to devote their energies to implementing a pioneering rewilding project on the estate that has won them many friends among the environmental lobby nationally. It is all Lombard Street to a China orange that nobody would have associated Knepp with cricket. Yet 'house eleven' was played on the gracious front lawn of the castle grounds from the mid-1860s (if not earlier) through to its dissolution following the Great War.
Albeit somewhat tenuous, the first mention of 'cricket' and 'Shipley' in the same sentence dates back as far as 1784 and there are more references to the sport being played locally throughout the first half of the 19th century. These include being bowled out against Horsham for just seven runs (1838), while in August 1859 a match against Southwater 'was steadily watched by a tame magpie'. There was a somewhat peripatetic feel to cricket in the parish in these early days. As often as not, the Shipley cricketers would join forces with their counterparts across the Worthing Road in West Grinstead. Matches were played at various locations including West Grinstead Park, Jolesfield Common and Coolham, but not Knepp Castle. Not, that is, until Wednesday 15 July 1863, when Shipley CC entertained and comfortably defeated West Grinstead. This is the first known reference to a match being played at the castle.
Between 1873 and 1882, the club played under the banner of 'Shipley & West Grinstead United CC'. Matches against Cuckfield, in particular, seem to have had their moments: in July 1871, a close-run game ended in a very unfair and very unfriendly manner, with Cuckfield reportedly drawing stumps five minutes before time, when Knepp required just three runs to win with nine wickets in hand. On a happier note, in a match at Cuckfield in 1875, the Shipley team 'were driven up in grand style by Captain Burrell, on his four-in-hand drag'. In July 1874, the side made its first appearance at the County Ground in Hove, and a winning one at that. That season saw the combined XI playing home matches at no fewer than four different venues. However, all this was about to change, for in 1875, Knepp Castle Lawn was officially declared as Shipley’s new cricket ground. Which was all very fine, as far as it went, but in June 1877, Knepp fell to a defeat of quite humiliating proportions against visitors