The Meadow at Chapel Hill Cross

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to umpire a match in which the bowlers wore top hats, and gentlemen thought that wearing pads and gloves was beneath their dignity?

'The Meadow at Chapel Hill Cross' takes you back to the opening of the first “proper” cricket ground in Torquay, and to the match against the famous All England Eleven which celebrated it. The author dreams that he is asked to umpire this match, and takes the reader with him into a world of cunning under-arm bowlers, and round-arm pacemen who hurl “tosses” at the batsman’s head. You get to listen to the chat of some of the finest cricketers in the game’s history, Old Clarke, George Parr, and the laugh-a-minute Billy Buttress.

Neither umpires, nor the world’s leading professionals, are allowed into the sanctity of the members’ pavilion, so the author must glimpse through the doorways, and spend his time, sharing jugs of ale with those who attracted thousands to watch, yet were deemed unworthy of a gentleman’s company. Welcome to a world of cricket where sheep crop the grass, the groundsman stamps the turfs, the fielders chase “booth balls”, and boundaries are not even dreamed of!

It is a world which will fascinate you, and a journey that you will always remember!