Time Team Comes To Wiltshire

Introduction
I've spent just half-an-hour or so racking my brain and scribbling down a list of all the things I think I can recall about Bowerchalke Cricket Club. It didn't take long for the page to fill-up. I guess that's the equivalent of 'putting in a trench' to see what The Time Team can unearth in some ancient site (my brain)! I hope I've not mixed-up too many memories from other places which confuse matters (the cricket memory equivalent of unearthing a Roman vase in an Anglo-Saxon battle field). You know how it is, one memory leads to another and then another and so on. It's easy to get things muddled up. Of course, I was only a small boy back in the late 1960s/early 1970s (yes, really!) and so I can't really remember anything about the cricket at all! However, there's so much I think I can recall, I'm sure if I've got anything wrong I will soon be corrected.

Getting to the ground
To get to Bowerchalke cricket ground you could approach it from a number of different ways. Driving up through the Chalke Valley (from Bishopstone/Broadchalke) as you arrived in Bowerchalke you could take a right-hand fork and follow the narrow road up the hill and past Rook Haye farm, taking a left-hand turn as the road wound round and finding the ground's entrance on the left just past some houses that backed-on to the ground*. Or alternatively as you arrived in Bowerchalke you could drive up through the village on the main road#, past The Bell Inn on the right, the Church on the left, the School~ on the right and take a turn right up the hill at the village shop arriving at the ground on the right hand side.
* Google Maps shows that this is called Quidham Street
# Google maps shows that this called Church Street
~ now the village hall

The ground
The ground's entrance was a farm gate and cars drove into the field and parked in and around the pavillion area.

The playing surface at Bowerchalke was behind a fenced-off area and surrounded by an often-used cow field, rough pasture essentially and part of the working farm. Cows were never there on match days however unlike some grounds in the New Forest where horses and cows roamed in and around the grounds at will. There was a sharpe contrast between the short-cut grass of the playing surface and the long, thick, clumpy grass of the surrounds. There were four very large, square wooden posts in each corner of the fence which formed a large square shape (I can remember those large posts still being there quite a few years after the club folded). The surrounding fence was made of metal wire joined to wooden stakes set out at regular intervals. The pitch had a metal farm gate as an entrance just to the left and in in front of the pavillion. This was opened-up before play commenced and closed again at the end of the day, to keep the cattle off I guess. I can remember running through that open gateway at tea-time to play with my bat and ball on the 'hallowed turf', although I'm sure that was frowned upon. Small boys were expected to play in the cow field, side-stepping the cow-pats either crusty or fresh depending on when the last bovine visit had been. If you managed to whack a ball over the fence and on to the field of play during the game, well you knew you had to dash on and off as quickly as you could to retrieve it, keeping low as you ran along in a vain attempt to avoid being seen!

Preparing the pitch
I remember driving-up to the cricket ground with my Dad during weekday evenings once or twice to watch him cut the outfield using a tractor from Rook Haye Farm. I guess there was some sort of volunteers rota to do this. He used to park the car (a rust-red Austin A40) there and drive the tractor round to the ground. I used to walk through the farm yard and across the field as he was doing this feeling annoyed that I wasn't allowed into the tractor. I can't remember if the mowers were at the ground already or were kept at the Farm. Can you remember?

Toilets
The 'men only' toilet facilities were slightly worse than basic, a few sheets of rusting corrugated iron, vertically erected in a discrete corner of the field did the job just to the right of the entrance as I recall but before you got to the pavillion. There was no door, just a gap in the iron. I don't remember there being a roof but there could have been. I seem to recall some sort of cow trough contraption inside but that maybe my imagine running wild. Inside it had a mud floor and used to stink to high heaven I seem to recall, especially if it was a hot day. But when you gotta go you gotta go...ladies had to keep their legs crossed or visit a friendly neighbour.

The pavillion
There was a little wooden structure that served as the pavillion, I think it was painted green and erected on a concrete base. Like a large garden shed really. It had a quite large door at one end that served as the only entrance and narrow, rectangular windows looking out on the pitch. I think the scorers mainly used to sit just inside the entrance on a wooden bench with metal legs peering out of the windows which could be opened. Sometimes I seem to recall the scorers sitting outside, having transported a table and chair closer to the action. The players' changing area was separated from the rest of the pavillion, where teas were prepared and laid out on trestle tables, by an old curtain or blanket hung from a metal rail. This was swept across on a rail to avoid any unecessary embarassment. I seem to recall that on opening the pavillion before each game the first thing that had to be done was to remove a petrol driven mower which was stored there for safe-keeping. I can't quite remember the scoreboard. Was it lent up against the pavillion?

The tea lady
Mrs Downs was the tealady who would turn-up at the ground as regular as clockwork for each home game, park near the pavillion and then offload the already prepared teas from the back of her car. I seem to recall it was like a station wagon but couldn't tell you the make of vehicle. I assume water was boiled using a gas cylinder and urn? Was I right in thinking that players' wives took it in turn to assist with the teas?

Grandad Gulliver
Just before the tea intervals my Grandad (Harold Gulliver) would often appear at the style on the other side of the cow-field and stand there watching the game before trudging back down the hill to Holly Close where he and Granny Gulliver lived. I do wonder if he'd been over to Rook Haye Farm to collect milk in his small, metal urn before arriving. I guess he had Goldie the dog with him and was probably smoking his pipe.

Retrieving the ball
Next to the ground was a large house owned by Mrs Beckley and sometimes during the game the ball used to get hit over the high wall that separated her garden from the ground. I can remember being dispatched with Paul Lampert (who also lived next to the ground and whose Dad played) to retrieve the ball which we invariably found, a bit worse for wear and dusty, after a bit of searching amongst the impeccably well laid out vegetable patch.

Not on the Sabbath
As I understand it cricket couldn't be played at Bowerchalke on a Sunday which was a stipulation of the farmer who owned the field (Mr. Beckley I think).

Beer matches
I seem to recall that if a game finished early then a second impromptu game was quickly organised (probably because The Bell Inn hadn't opened). These were known as Beer Matches, were of limited overs and often the normal batting order would be reversed. I seem to recall seeing one or two of these games being scored in the back of the normal scorebook. I guess it was like an early type of Twenty20 match, with plenty of slogging by lower order batsmen who wouldn't normally get a bat and a chance for some of the batsment to have a bowl. Did you ever play in one of these games?

Players
Here's a few players I can remember off the top of my head: my Dad (Brian) of course but also Morris Lampert (who kept wicket), Chris Harding (who had a beard and was captain), David Holmes(?), Reggie Clough, Nick Gurd(?) and David Tate (who drove sports cars and kindly used to share his empty cigar boxes with me for my collection!). I'm sure there were many more...

The Bell Inn
Finally, I can just about remember The Bell Inn and sitting outside at the front in a grass garden with Mum and Dad, at a wooden bench drinking coke through a straw and eating crisps. I'm not sure if that was after a game or something which happened at another time but I'd like to think the former.

KeithG