The Prince of Wales Ground, also known as Prince's Ground, in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

was the venue for top-class

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 ...

matches in the closing years of the 18th century.

Location

The ground was on a site now occupied by Park Crescent and its surroundings. The land was originally donated to the

Brighton Cricket Club Brighton Cricket Club was based at Brighton, Sussex and was briefly a top-class team, playing seven matches between 1791 and 1814 which have been given first-class cricket status. It is often seen as being representative of Sussex as a county.

by the then

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

. His patronage helped Brighton to become a powerful club that sparked a revival in the fortunes of Sussex cricket which lasted well into the 19th century.

Matches

Only four

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 were played at the ground. All of them took place between September 1791 and September 1792.

Aftermath

As the towns of Brighton and Hove developed, the land was sold a few years later and the cricket club moved to a new site in Brighton at Temple Fields, which was where

Montpelier Crescent Montpelier Crescent is a mid 19th-century crescent of 38 houses in the Montpelier suburb of Brighton, part of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Built in five parts as a set-piece residential development in the rapidly growing seas ...

is now. The Brighton club was representative of Sussex as a county and it ultimately became the main instrument in the formation of

Sussex County Cricket Club Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Sussex. Its limited overs team is called the Sussex Sharks. The c ...

in 1839. From July 1814 the club occupied the Royal New Ground (also known as

Thomas Box Thomas Box (7 February 1808 – 12 July 1876) was a famous English cricketer who is remembered as one of the most outstanding wicketkeepers of the 19th century. Player Box played in important matches from 1826 to 1856. Although he played sever ...

's Ground), another Brighton venue, which was used for 49 first-class matches until September 1847 and was the county ground for Sussex in its early years. From 1848 to 1871, Sussex used the

Royal Brunswick Ground The Royal Brunswick Ground, also known as "C H Gausden's Ground", in Hove, Sussex was a venue for first-class cricket matches from 1848 to 1871. The ground was situated to the west of the Brunswick Town area of Hove, roughly where Third and Fo ...

in Brighton, also known as C H Gausden's Ground. Since 1872, the club has been based at the

County Cricket Ground, Hove The County Cricket Ground, known for Naming rights#Stadium naming, sponsorship reasons as The 1st Central County Ground, is a cricket venue in Hove, East Sussex, England. The County Ground is the home of Sussex County Cricket Club, where most Su ...

Location

Matches

Aftermath

References and notes

Further reading