Cricket Grounds of the Furness Peninsula

By Mike Latham

The cricket grounds of the Furness Peninsula offer a varied experience for the enthusiast, with some rural, some urban settings but all with one thing in common- clubs run by dedicated volunteers proud of their own clubs.

Time your day right and as long as you are lucky in choosing later games that go the distance, you can spend half an hour so at each during the course of a Saturday afternoon, for most of the sides run second elevens, ensuring a home game every weekend.

The A590 from J36 of the M6 motorway is improved these days, the by-pass around Low Newton shaving some time off the journey. The biggest bottleneck for traffic is the busy market town of Ulverston, where the afternoon starts.

Most of the clubs play in the Cumbria Cricket League, formerly known as the North Lancashire and District League (the area was historically part of Lancashire until the boundary changes of 1974) whose first season was in 1892. The exception is Barrow CC, who left to join the Northern League in 2004 and this season will play in the Palace Shield after suffering relegation in 2019.

Three of the clubs in the tour became inaugural members of the North Lancashire and District League, Barrow, Dalton and Ulverston, the other founder members being Kendal, Lancaster and Millom. Barrow St James- renamed Furness in 1919- joined in 1909, Vickerstown in 1920 and Lindal Moor in 1925. Vickers Sports Club- now Hawcoat Park- became league members in 1938.

Tarn Close- Ulverston’s former home

The Hoad Monument is the iconic landmark above the town of Ulverston

First stop is Ulverston CC who once played at a lamented, rural ground known as Tarn Close which back in the 1890s they shared with a local rugby side, the splendidly named Ulverston Grapplers. In the past 40 years or so home is at Priory Road, behind the sports centre, more functional but with the fine landmark of the Hoad Monument as a backdrop. A natural banking on the western side gives perhaps the best view of the game.

Railway Meadow, Dalton-in-Furness

Dalton’s Railway Meadow ground is hard to find, down a narrow passage off Ulverston Road. It’s another huge ground, that once hosted big crowds in the heyday of the late 1940s and ‘50s when it was often the venue for the league’s Higson Cup Finals. As the name suggests the railway borders the ground to the south and east.

Lindal Moor CC

Heading towards Barrow, the beautiful Lindal Moor ground can be spotted on the right-hand side. The Pennington Lane ground has an isolated location and has been described as a village ground without a village. The small boundaries and fine pitch often make for big scores and the ground has been enhanced in recent years by a smart pavilion re-build and an electronic scoreboard which was working overtime on my last visit in 2018, as Whitehaven’s Chase Young compiled a brutal 245 as his side amassed 400.

Ernest Pass Memorial Ground

Barrow CC’s Ernest Pass Memorial Ground was bequeathed to the club by the then chairman and named in memory of his son, one of the fallen in the first world war. Barrow have played here since the 1920s having previously played on the vast open spaces of Cavendish Park on Barrow Island, overlooking the shipyard, which they shared with the town’s rugby club up until 1914. The ground is overshadowed by the town’s general hospital and play is sometimes interrupted while a helicopter lands, ferrying a patient from a remote area. Barrow is a friendly club, proud of its youth policy with Liam Livingstone currently a member of the England T20 squad in India.

Furness CC

Travelling further towards the town centre down Abbey Road, Furness CC’s ground, found by turning right up Hawcoat Lane at the traffic lights by the Strawberry, then second left down Oxford Street is beautifully manicured and has a fine reputation for its excellent pitches. As with Barrow the ground hosts Cumberland (now Cumbria) CCC matches. The pavilion has a balcony for players to watch the game while many of the club’s most avid supporters sit with their backs to the sturdy wall that runs along the Oxford Street side of the large ground.

Hawcoat Park CC

A few hundred yards further up Hawcoat Lane the cricket ground of Hawcoat Park CC can be found amidst a vast expanse of playing fields, with rugby union and soccer also accommodated on separate pitches, the rugby team on a higher level behind the bowler’s arm at the far end. Formerly known as Vickers Sports Club and a recreation ground for the shipyard employees, the complex is now privately owned.

Vickerstown CC

Finally, the journey ends, or starts if you decide to head furthest away and head back eastwards, on Walney Island where Vickerstown CC field one team in the third tier of the Cumbria Cricket League. Rainey Park has seen better days, its old scoreboard, a formidable building, now looking forlorn but the club has been kept alive by a dedicated band of volunteers and players and hopefully will enjoy a revival.

Plenty of variety, a warm welcome wherever you go, and a day well spent if you fancy the scenic journey in search of cricket in what remains a real hotbed of the game. In a future blog I’ll take you on a journey up the west coast from Barrow-in-Furness in search of more league cricket- and memorable cricket grounds.