Hadlow Cricket Club was one of the early English

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 ...

clubs, formed in the early to mid eighteenth century.

Hadlow Hadlow is a village in the borough of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, England. It is situated in the Medway valley, north-east of Tonbridge and south-west of Maidstone. The Saxon name for the settlement was Haeselholte (in the Textus Roffens ...

is a village in the

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

valley near

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated population ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

The historic club

A cricket club at Hadlow was known to exist during the 18th century and players from it known to have played during the 1747 English cricket season.

F S Ashley-Cooper Frederick Samuel Ashley-Cooper (born c. 22 March 1877 in Bermondsey, London; died 31 January 1932 in Milford, near Godalming, Surrey) was a cricket historian and statistician. According to ''Wisden'', Ashley-Cooper wrote "103 books and pamphl ...

referred to a quote which described it as "a famous parish for cricket". The ''Penny London Post'' reported that a match was to be played between the club and

Dartford Cricket Club Dartford Cricket Club is one of the oldest cricket clubs in England with origins which date from the early 18th century, perhaps earlier. The earliest known match involving a team from Dartford took place in 1722, against London, but the club's ...

as "the deciding match".

G B Buckley George Bent Buckley (1885 – 26 April 1962) was an English surgeon and a celebrated cricket historian and an authority on the early days of the game. Buckley was born in Saddleworth, Yorkshire, the son of Arthur and Jane Buckley, his fath ...

, ''Fresh Light on Pre-Victorian Cricket'', Cotterell, 1937 Five players from the club played five from

Slindon Cricket Club Slindon Cricket Club was famous in the middle part of the 18th century when it claimed to have the best team in England. It was located at Slindon, a village in the Arun district of Sussex. Cricket in the 18th century was funded by gambling i ...

during the same year.F S Ashley-Cooper, ''At the Sign of the Wicket: Cricket 1742-1751'', ''Cricket Magazine'', 1900. The last mention of the original Hadlow club is a match against

Addington Cricket Club Addington Cricket Club fielded one of the strongest cricket teams in England from about the 1743 season to the 1752 season although the village of Addington is a very small place in Surrey about three miles south-east of Croydon. The team was ...

in 1751.G B Buckley, ''Fresh Light on 18th Century Cricket'', Cotterell, 1935

The modern club

Cricket is still played at Hadlow. The modern club was first mentioned in 1819 and the present ground is located off Common Road, to the north of the village. The pavilion dates from 1864 and cost £42.10s to build. The club fields teams in the Kent County Village League.Hadlow CC History

References

External links

Hadlow Cricket Club
website {{English cricket teams in the 18th century Former senior cricket clubs of England English cricket teams in the 18th century Sports clubs and teams established in the 18th century Hadlow Club cricket teams in England Cricket in Kent