Clarence Park is a Victorian park used for sports and leisure in St Albans,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is still largely in its original form and has a rich variety of trees and planting. It is close to

St Albans City railway station St Albans City railway station, also known simply as St Albans, is one of two railway stations serving the city of St Albans in Hertfordshire, England (the other being ). The 'City' station is the larger of the two, as it is on the better-conn ...

Overview

The park was laid out in early 1894, and comprises a municipal sports ground and a public park and

pleasure ground In English gardening history, the pleasure ground or pleasure garden was the parts of a large garden designed for the use of the owners, as opposed to the kitchen garden and the wider park. It normally included flower gardens, typically dir ...

. The benefactor, Sir John Maple, the owner of Maple's furniture store in

Tottenham Court Road Tottenham Court Road (occasionally abbreviated as TCR) is a major road in Central London, almost entirely within the London Borough of Camden. The road runs from Euston Road in the north to St Giles Circus in the south; Tottenham Court Road t ...

and who lived at nearby

Childwickbury Childwickbury is a hamlet in Hertfordshire, England lying to the north of St Albans in the parish of St Michael. Childwickbury Manor was home to Stanley Kubrick from 1978 until his death there in 1999. Many of the buildings in Childwickbury ar ...

, donated the land and paid for the laying out, the planting and the construction of the buildings; the layout of the park itself was designed by the City Surveyor, Mr G. Ford. A striking water fountain, which can still be seen today, was donated by Lady Maple. The park was opened on 23 July 1894 by the

Duke of Cambridge Duke of Cambridge, one of several current royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom , is a hereditary title of specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. The title (named after the city of Cambridge in England) is heritable by male de ...

, a member of the Royal family, and the event was accompanied by great celebrations in the city of St Albans. The sports ground hosts cricket, hockey, bowls and croquet and is also the home of St Albans City Football Club. The public park includes large grass areas used for sun bathing and games during summer, a bandstand, a children's play-park and a café. The public park is also used as the site of some of the human "Peopletown" skits on Disney Channel's preschool series ''

Bunnytown ''Bunnytown'' is an American children's television program that aired on Playhouse Disney in the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as several other countries. Reruns of the show continued to air after their initial broadcast episode d ...

''.

Football ground

Clarence Park is the home ground of St Albans City F.C. and it has been since their formation in 1908. It was used by St Albans F.C. and St Albans Amateurs F.C. prior to the formation of St Albans City. On 22 September 1894, the first football match at Clarence Park took place. In the 1992-93 season, St Albans City finished as runners-up in the Isthmian League but were denied promotion due a low ground grading as a result of a diseased oak tree within one of the terraces.

Cricket ground

Next to the football ground is a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

ground. The first recorded match played on the cricket ground came in 1875, when Hertfordshire played

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. The first Minor Counties Championship match played on the ground came in 1895 when Hertfordshire played

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...

. From 1895 to 1997, the ground hosted 84 Minor Counties Championship matches and 2

MCCA Knockout Trophy The National Counties Cricket Association Knockout Cup was started in 1983 as a knockout one-day competition for the National Counties in English cricket. At first it was known as the ''English Industrial Estates Cup'', before being called the ...

matches. The cricket ground has played host to two

List-A List A cricket is a classification of the limited-overs (one-day) form of the sport of cricket, with games lasting up to eight hours. List A cricket includes One Day International (ODI) matches and various domestic competitions in which the numbe ...

matches, he first of which came in the

1984 NatWest Trophy The 1984 NatWest Trophy was an English limited overs county cricket tournament which was held between 4 July and 1 September 1984. The fourth NatWest Trophy tournament, it was won by Middlesex who defeated Kent by 4 wickets in the final at Lord ...

between Hertfordshire and Somerset. The second and final List-A match played on the ground came in the 1990 NatWest Trophy between Hertfordshire and

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Av ...

. The ground also hosted a single match in the

1973 Women's Cricket World Cup The 1973 Women's Cricket World Cup was the inaugural Women's Cricket World Cup, held in England between 20 June and 28 July 1973. It was the first tournament of its kind, held two years before the first limited overs World Cup for men in 1975. T ...

, which was contested between

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. In local domestic cricket, the ground is the home of St Albans Cricket Club who play in the Saracens Hertfordshire Cricket League Division 2A.

References

External links

* * {{Hertfordshire CCC Football venues in England Cricket grounds in Hertfordshire St Albans City F.C. Buildings and structures in St Albans Sports venues in Hertfordshire Parks and open spaces in Hertfordshire Sports venues completed in 1894