Garrison 1 Cricket 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 striki ...

ground in

Chatham, Kent Chatham ( ) is a town located within the Medway unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Gillingham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. The town developed around Chatham ...

. The ground is owned by the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

and has been used by military teams throughout its history, being linked with the various military establishments at Chatham. It has been known as the Nore Command Cricket Ground and the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Recreation Ground, the

Nore Command The Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, was an operational commander of the Royal Navy. His subordinate units, establishments, and staff were sometimes informally known as the Nore Station or Nore Command. The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of the Th ...

being associated with the nearby

Chatham Dockyard Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham (at its most extensive, in the early 20th century, ...

. It remains the main home ground used by the Royal Engineers Cricket Club. The ground is located immediately west of the outer defences of

Fort Amherst Fort Amherst, in Medway, South East England, was constructed in 1756 at the southern end of the Brompton lines of defence to protect the southeastern approaches to Chatham Dockyard and the River Medway against a French invasion. Fort Amherst is ...

, part of the 18th century military defences associated with the naval base, at the south-west corner of the Chatham Lines, an area of open space historically containing a number of military fortifications.Brompton Lines Conservation Area Appraisal (Adopted Version)

Medway Council Medway Council is the local authority of Medway in Kent, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. The council was created on 1 April 1998 and replaced Rochester-upon-Med ...

, May 2006. Archived 2014-02-21. Retrieved 2018-02-18. It is overlooked by the

Chatham Naval Memorial Chatham Naval Memorial is a large obelisk situated in the town of Chatham, Kent, which is in the Medway Towns. The memorial is a feature of the Great Lines Heritage Park. The huge expanse of the Great Lines was in its own right a layer of defenc ...

and is around north-east of Chatham town centre and west of Gillingham town centre.Explorer Map 163 – Gravesend & Rochester,

Ordnance Survey , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , di ...

, 2015-09-16. Although technically the ground is in Gillingham it, along with the military establishments nearby, is traditionally referred to as being located in Chatham.Garrison 1 Cricket Ground, Chatham
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-02-18.

Cricket history

The first recorded match on the ground was in 1879,
CricktArchive. Retrieved 2018-02-18. although cricket has been played on or near the ground since the middle of the 19th century and on the Great Lines since at least 1750.Milton H (1979) Kent cricket grounds, in ''The Cricket Statistician'', no. 28, December 1979, pp.2–10.

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

used the ground for two Second XI fixtures, both against

Norfolk County Cricket Club Norfolk County Cricket Club is one of twenty minor county cricket clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Norfolk. The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Champio ...

in the

Minor Counties Championship The NCCA 3 Day Championship (previously the Minor Counties Cricket Championship) is a season-long competition in England and Wales that is contested by the members of the National Counties Cricket Association (NCCA), the so-called national cou ...

s of 1925 and 1926Minor Counties Championship matches played on Garrison Ground 1, Chatham
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-02-18. and for three First XI

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officiall ...

matches, once in 1926 and twice in 1927.

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

were the opposition in the grounds first first-class match in June 1926 and played Kent again on the ground the following year. The

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

played two first-class matches on the ground in 1929, against MCC and the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

.Grounds Records in ''Kent County Cricket Club Annual 2017'', pp.210–211. Canterbury:

.First-Class Matches played on Garrison 1 Cricket Ground, Chatham
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-02-18. The Navy used the ground regularly until 1960 and played their last match on the ground in 1980, Chatham Naval Base closing in 1984.Nicholson S (2014
Chatham Dockyard: Lasting impact three decades on
BBC News, 2014-03-31. Retrieved 2018-02-18. The ground was used by a variety of other teams, including the Army cricket team, who played a number of times against Kent's Second XI on the ground, and amateur clubs such as Band of Brothers and

Incogniti The Incogniti cricket club was founded in 1861. It claims to be the third oldest "wandering" cricket club – a nomadic cricket club without its own home ground – after I Zingari and Free Foresters (founded in 1845 and 1856 respectively). H ...

Royal Engineers Cricket Club

The

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

(RE) first played cricket in 1862 as a formal club.About the RECC
Royal Engineers Cricket Club. Retrieved 2017-11-04. The nearby Garrison Ground 2 was used as the club's home ground initially, with Garrison Ground 1 first used in 1899 when it hosted one of the annual matches between the RE and the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

.Other matches played by Royal Engineers
, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-11-04.Cricket
Army Sappers, British Army. Retrieved 2018-02-18. Garrison 1 Ground has been used regularly by the RE since the 1960s as their home ground, remaining in use as of 2017.Royal Engineers Cricket
Royal Engineers Cricket Club. Retrieved 2017-11-04.Royal Engineers against Army Medical Services
Royal Engineers Cricket Club, 2017-06-29. Retrieved 2018-02-18.

Records on the ground

A total of five first-class cricket matches were played on the ground, three with Kent as the home side and two with the Royal Navy playing at home. *Highest total: 382 by

against MCC, 1929 *Lowest total: 113 by Royal Navy against MCC, 1929 *Highest partnership: 155, 5th wicket by SH Martin and JC Hubble, for MCC against Royal Navy, 1929 *Highest individual score: 187, FE Woolley for Kent against Derbyshire, 1927 *Best bowling in an innings: 7/43, SH Martin for MCC against Royal Navy, 1929 *Best bowling in a match: 10/163, SH Martin for MCC against Royal Navy, 1929 Both the highest and lowest team totals scored on the ground were achieved by the same side in the same match. The Royal Navy scored 113 all out in their first innings batting against MCC in 1929. Following on they scored 382 in their second innings, winning the match after bowling out MCC for 139 runs in the final innings of the match.Royal Navy v Marylebone Cricket Club
Scorecard, CricketArchive. Retrieved 2018-02-18.

Other uses

The Royal Engineers have also used the ground for

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

matches.

References

External links

Garrison 1 Cricket Ground
on

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

{{Kent CCC Cricket grounds in Kent Chatham, Kent