Remarkable Village Cricket Grounds: An illustrated guide to the world’s atmospheric village cricket grounds

A must for any cricket lover

This is a lovely book for any cricket fan! It’s illustrated with photos showing each ground’s personality and includes some history of each club. Highly recommended for the person who has everything and great to pick up and dive in for five minutes!

I've bought several books which have attempted to capture the beauty of village cricket but none have done it better than this one. The choice of grounds is extensive, covering the whole country, including the well known, obvious ones but many I'd previously been unaware of. The book is about the photos and the quality of photos is superb and the text adds the necessary information. Highly recommended to anyone with a passion for club cricket.

Two years after releasing ‘Remarkable Cricket Grounds’, author Brian Levison put his passport back in the drawer for the time being and traversed Great Britain in search of that quintessential part of British life; the village cricket ground. This is his second coffee styled book on the subject of where cricket is played. Once again it’s the photos that make it what it is. The text is informative but none of it would really mean anything without the visuals. The layout is the same and whilst that first book was good, I think this surpasses that simply because it’s about something most of us can relate to. Of the 94 grounds here (four are in Wales and two in Scotland), 14 are repeated from the author’s earlier book. Though the narrative and photos are different, it’s a shame he decided to include those same grounds here when there are more than enough substitutes. As expected, most of the grounds featured here have their oddities. Some, such as Knole Park, has a tree inside the boundary (not the one The Beatles utilised for their ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ video), to hit a four at Meopham, the ball has to hit the kerb on the other side of the road (cars beware); Spout House in Yorkshire has a unique sandstone roller, the only access to the pitch at Bridgetown is across a rickety bridge; a WW2 blockhouse at Instow in North Devon doubles as the scorers box and the pavilion is the oldest in the country (built in 1760). Sleepy Abinger Hammer in Surrey where a river is a natural boundary, found itself swamped by 3,000 spectators in 1983 when the full New Zealand test side turned up for a game. It’s the quirkiness which all these grounds possess that makes them special and looking at the photos does make you want to visit them, which is the one of the ideas of the book. With those half dozen across Hadrian’s Wall and Offa’s Dyke, the remainder are liberally spread around the four corners of England with plenty in the middle, so there’s going to be one or more well within your reach.

Love this book. Beautifully illustrated and written. And I’ve played on a lot of those grounds. An absolute gem.

Perfect present for a cricket fan!

Very interesting my father in law loved it. Beautiful photos

very nice gift for person who has played at a couple of the pitches shown. Beautiful book that he was really thrilled to receive.