18 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 Lynn Pearson Britain’s historic cricket pavilions Pavilions, set in open spaces and not permanently occupied, are vulnerable structures. They remain at the heart of cricket’s architectural, social and cultural significance. Surprisingly, cricket’s voluminous literature has almost completely ignored the sport’s architectural history, although there are well over 40 listed cricket pavilions in the United Kingdom.The exact number depends on whether or not multi-sport pavilions, and those initially built for other purposes, are included. The majority of listed pavilions are in England, in locations ranging throughout the country from County Durham to Devon. Scotland has at least seven listed pavilions – four of them in Edinburgh – and there are examples in Northern Ireland andWales. Most of them were built during what is often known as the ‘golden age’ of cricket, from the 1880s to the first world war, when the game was expanding at home and abroad, and pavilions were beginning to populate the outposts of empire. Erecting a pavilion was the typical first step taken by a cricket club once it acquired its own ground, rather than playing on common land or other shared space. Initially, pavilion architecture was rudimentary, and prefabrication was a popular solution, at home and abroad.The Liverpool engineering firm Francis Morton and Company offered a huge range of prefabricated corrugated iron structures in its 1873 catalogue, and had already sold a clubhouse, complete with beer cellar, to the city’s Anfield Cricket Club. Several other specialist prefabrication firms, including Rowell’s of London, sold ironwork pavilions around the turn of the century, although smaller wooden structures – like those advertised by London firm William Cooper’s – were probably simpler to erect. Boulton and Paul of Norwich could provide an array of prefabricated wooden structures, some quite elaborate, including a two-storey cricket or golf pavilion with a balcony and tower, costing £198 in 1898. England’s oldest surviving unaltered purpose-built cricket pavilion is the Grade II-listed Green Pavilion at Rugby School, erected by a local builder in 1851, and little more than a small – albeit historically significant – shed. Typically, early pavilions were small timber-framed structures with half-timbered detailing, often set on brick plinths. They came to include changing rooms, County cricket during summer 2011 at Scarborough Cricket Club’s North Marine Road ground, where the pavilion dates from 1896 Swindon Cricket Club’s Grade II-listed pavilion, showing its fine ironwork and first-floor seating
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