Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

19 1900, and his successor John Purser. Alexander Copping, all-round sportsman and an employee (later partner) in Offord and Buckden Mills, continued the police link: he was the son of a Deputy Chief Constable. The club now plays on a square and outfield provided through the efforts of the War Memorial Playing Fields Trust, with the use of a pavilion put up as part of the village’s millennium improvements. For much of its history, however, it led a nomadic existence within the parish. Some matches were, in fact, played on the present field, but that was when it was still known as the Vineyards, and the ground had not been levelled. Other venues included ‘somewhere in Stirtloe’ (memories disagree exactly where, so perhaps there was more than one site), and fields at Coneygarths and Park Farm. The minutes of the club’s 1952 AGM record that Mr Noel Thornhill ‘has consented to the club playing a number of matches on his ground at Diddington.’ In fact, the Diddington ground had previously been put at the disposal of players from Buckden, this time in the early years of the Second World War, when it was used by the Tollington School evacuees from London. The boys also played on a matting wicket laid down in the Towers and on the Buckden Cricket Club ground ‘in Lucks Lane’ (one of the Stirtloe pitches, perhaps?). A book of press cuttings kept by the club secretary gives some idea of the Buckden’s prowess and fortunes on the field from 1947 to 1952. They seem to have varied greatly from disaster to success – but as newspaper reports from the club’s earliest years confirm, there was nothing new in this! Fund-raising is always a headache for any sports club. In 1949 the cricket club held a fête at Beech Lawn (q.v.), then the home of Mr Edward Cranfield-Rose, the club’s president and chairman (a pair of whose cricketing flannels passed via a jumble sale to one of the Tollington boys back in 1941, lasting him until he went into the army in 1945). The fête raised about £100, a remarkable amount for sixty years ago. (How, incidentally, does one play pig skittles? If anyone still has a set, perhaps it is time for a revival...) The 1949 Annual Dinner took place in the Rifle Range. Seventy attended. The presentation of the Cranfield League (South) Cup to the club’s captain W. R. Boddy was made by Mrs Cranfield, the widow of William Walker Cranfield, a lover of cricket who had done much to encourage the game before his death in 1931; his support included funding the purchase of the kit for three teams and donating two cups. The 1951 AGM listed improvements which the club had been able to make during the year including a concrete wicket and a water supply. The War Memorial Committee had made a grant towards the cost. Among the thanks recorded were those to Mr Mailer (Park Farm) for ‘many kindnesses’. In one year in this post-war period several matches had to be cancelled due to the demands of the harvest – a reminder that agriculture still dominated the economy of the parish. Cricket had, of course, been part of life in Buckden and its neighbouring villages long before the founding of the club in 1891. Indeed, the Rev. Henry Linton, of Stirtloe House and Diddington vicarage, produced two sons who played for Oxford University: Henry junior who batted and bowled in four matches in 1858-9, and Sydney, a batsman who took part in eight matches between 1861 and 1863. Neither exactly distinguished himself in these matches, but Henry in particular was regarded as an excellent player. He joined the Madras Civil Service and rose rapidly through its ranks until felled by dysentery at the age of only 28. Sydney went on to become the first Bishop of Riverina, New South Wales, where he constructed his official residence out of sawdust, wood and corrugated iron, and had a rose named after him (and another after his wife). Finally, no mention of cricket in Buckden would be complete without a reference to Bernie Facer – not a member of Buckden Cricket Club (he played for Kimbolton), but one of the leading makers of bats, with over forty years experience with Hunts County Bats, Double-B Bats (his own company), and more recently Hawk Cricket of Worcestershire. His ‘Baronet’ is highly regarded: a ‘hard pressed’ bat that takes some time to play A Buckden XI with W.W.Cranfield c 1930 Alice Whitmee