20 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 Notes � ‘Top ten endangered buildings 2011’, The Victorian, November 2011, no 38, pp14–16. Lynn Pearson is an independent architectural historian based in Newcastle upon Tyne. She wrote Played in Tyne andWear (2010) for English Heritage’s Played in Britain series on sporting heritage. All photographs ©Lynn Pearson example of an English club pavilion, and is the sole Grade II* listed cricket pavilion; its finely detailed terracotta was supplied by Edwards of Ruabon. Liverpool Cricket Club’s little-altered 1881 pavilion at Aigburth is the oldest surviving at a first-class venue. Architects of pavilions frequently turn out to have been cricketers or friends of players, or to have had some other long-term connection, for instance having been a school’s pupil and later designing its pavilion. Although technological change – in power, heating and water supply – affected the interior layout of the pavilion over time, its external appearance rarely varied from the picturesque half-timbered. This remained the case even between the wars, although occasional neo-Georgian and even art-deco pavilions can be found dating from the 1920s and 1930s. The 1960s saw the construction of several modernist pavilions, such as Liverpool University’s Grade II-listed 1962 design by Gerald Beech.Their long, low lines are ideally suited to providing accommodation for spectators and especially players watching the game, but generally remain less popular than traditionally-styled pavilions. Currently some of the major test match grounds are taking modern pavilion design to a new scale, as at Yorkshire County Cricket Club’s home, Headingley in Leeds, where the Carnegie Pavilion (Alsop Sparch, 2010) combines facilities for cricketers, spectators and the press, and students and staff from Leeds Metropolitan University. However, modern pavilions at grassroots clubs still tend towards the traditional vernacular in design, although they now often incorporate community facilities as well as catering for cricketing requirements. Most of the surviving pre-second world war pavilions have been compromised to a greater or lesser degree by alterations – internal and external – and refurbishment. This is entirely understandable from the point of view of players and spectators, who wish for up-to-date facilities, and also from the angle of the club committee, who want modern function rooms and bars for fundraising purposes. All the more important, then, to focus on the conservation of less-altered pavilions when these come to public notice. Additionally, and although few in number, late 20th century pavilions of architectural significance are also important, whatever their style, frommodernist to what might be called neo-vernacular. The lengthy, thatched pavilion (1991) at Sir Paul Getty’s Buckinghamshire estateWormsley Park is in traditional style with modern tweaks, for instance the balcony railings of cricket bats. Reasons for the disappearance of pavilions are many, beginning with the loss of complete cricket grounds, as at Hampshire’s former County Ground in Southampton, flattened and replaced by a housing estate after the club moved out to the Rose Bowl on the outskirts of the city in 2000. Rather less dramatic is the loss of the cricket club itself, either as a result of diminishing membership or amalgamation; in either case, the result may be a pavilion with no further clear use. At the Bletchley Park Estate in Buckinghamshire, the handsome late 1890s cricket pavilion was sold in the 1970s and cut off from its ground, and continued to deteriorate even as theVictorian Society pointed out its plight in 2011.� Pavilions, by definition set in open spaces and not permanently occupied, are vulnerable structures. Vandalism, arson and accidental fires have all brought about the end of much-loved examples, and indeed caused the loss of club history: records, trophies and other artefacts. Thatch, once frequently used as a roofing material for rural pavilions, has often been the victim of fire. The fate of former pavilions may depend on their ownership, location and possibilities for alternative uses or conversion. We should remember that cricket’s built heritage includes grandstands and scoreboxes as well as smaller elements such as gateways, sightscreens, turnstiles, stained glass windows, statues and memorials, but the cricket pavilion itself remains at the heart of the game’s architectural, social and cultural significance. Blackpool Cricket Club’s pavilion (1925) in Stanley Park, designed by borough surveyor JC Robinson Sunderland Cricket Club’s 1899 pavilion at Ashbrooke was designed by architect and club member James Henderson. Two wings were added in 1930 by architect and club member Stanley Milburn
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=