Lord’s Cricket Ground, commonly known as Lord’s, is a cricket venue in St John’s Wood, London, UK. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and is the home of the Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the European Cricket Council (ECC) and until August 2005, the International Cricket Council (ICC). Lord’s is widely referred to as the ‘Home of Cricket’ and is home to the world’s oldest sporting museum.
Three grounds
Lord’s today is not on its original site; it is the third of three grounds that Lord established between 1787 and 1814. His first ground, now referred to as Lord’s Old Ground, was where Dorset Square now stands. His second ground, Lord’s Middle Ground, was used from 1811 to 1813 before being abandoned to make way for the construction through its outfield of the Regent’s Canal. The present Lord’s ground is about 230 metres north-west of the site of the Middle Ground. The ground can hold 30,000 spectators. Proposals are being developed to increase capacity and amenities. As of December 2013, it was proposed to redevelop the ground at a cost of around £200 million over a 14-year period.
The current ground celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary in 2014. To mark the occasion, on July 5, 2014 an MCC XI captained by Sachin Tendulkar played a Rest of the World XI led by Shane Warne in a 50-over match.
Acting on behalf of members of the White Conduit Club and backed against any losses by George Finch, the Ninth Earl of Winchilsea and Colonel Charles Lennox, Thomas Lord opened his first ground in May 1787 on the site where Dorset Square now stands, on land leased from the Portman Estate. The White Conduit moved there from Islington, unhappy at the standard of the ground at White Conduit Fields. Soon afterwards and reconstituted themselves as Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
The first match played at the new ground saw Middlesex play Essex. In 1811, feeling obliged to relocate because of a rise in rent, Lord removed his turf and re-laid it at his second ground. This was short-lived because it lay on the route decided by Parliament for the Regent’s Canal, in addition to the ground being unpopular with patrons.
Middle Ground
The ‘Middle Ground’ was on the estate of the Eyre family, who offered Lord another plot nearby and he again relocated his turf. This new ground was originally a duck pond on a hill in St. John’s Wood, which gives rise to Lord’s famous slope, which at the time was recorded as sloping 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) north-west to south-east, though in actuality the slope is 8 ft 1 in (2.46 m). The new ground was opened in the 1814 season, with the MCC playing Hertfordshire in the first match on the ground on 22 June 1814.
A tavern was built for Lord in 1813–14, followed by a wooden pavilion in 1814. First-class cricket was first played on the present ground in July 1814, with the MCC playing St John’s Wood Cricket Club. The first century to be scored at the ground in first-class cricket was made by Frederick Woodbridge (107) for Epsom against Middlesex, with Epsom’s Felix Ladbroke (116) recording the second century in the same match. The annual Eton vs Harrow match, which was first played on the Old Ground in 1805, returned to the present ground on July 29 1818. From 1822, the fixture has been almost an annual event at Lord’s.
First double century
The ground witnessed the first double-century to be made in first-class cricket when William Ward scored 278 for the MCC against Norfolk in 1820.
The original pavilion, which had recently been renovated at great expense, was destroyed by fire following the first Winchester vs Harrow match on July 23 1823, which destroyed nearly all of the original records of the MCC and the wider game. The pavilion was promptly rebuilt by Lord. In 1825, the future of the ground was placed in jeopardy when Lord proposed developing the ground with houses at a time when St John’s Wood was seeing rapid development.
The first University Match between Oxford and Cambridge was held at Lord’s in 1827, at the instigation of Charles Wordsworth, establishing what would be the oldest first-class fixture in the world until 2020. (TBR)