Carlisle Cricket Club, Edenside

History

Opened First recorded match at Edenside, 1850

Cricket in Carlisle from

1828

First match at Edenside

1850, against an All-England Eleven

Royal visit

George V and Queen Mary, 17 May 1917

Under the outfield

A Roman cavalry bathhouse

Under Edenside is a Roman bathhouse. A 2017 archaeological survey, done for a proposed flood-proof pavilion, uncovered it: entire rooms, intact floors, a hypocaust, terracotta water pipes, coins, arrowheads, hairpins, painted tiles, and a cooking pot with a lion's-head spout. It was the military bathhouse of the Ala Petriana, the thousand-strong elite cavalry regiment garrisoned at Uxelodunum, the Stanwix fort. It is nationally important, and the club has worked with the council on how to build without damaging it. The Cumbria Park stands on the fort and Edenside holds the garrison's bathhouse: same regiment, two venues.

Cricket came a good deal later. The game in Carlisle goes back to 1828, when the Carlisle Patriot reported a win over Cockermouth, and the first recorded match at Edenside was in 1850, against an All-England Eleven.

George V and Queen Mary came here in May 1917, on the Carlisle day of their tour of the North-West (Friday 18 May, by the Cumberland News, which has the royal party at Workington the afternoon before), and the King inspected the 1,200-strong 1st Battalion of the Cumberland Volunteer Regiment on the ground. Note the date. While that was happening, the state was busy taking over the city's pubs a few streets away.

Three touring sides played at Edenside in the 1950s: the West Indies in 1950 and 1957 and South Africa in 1955. The 1950 side included Clyde Walcott and Alf Valentine; the 1957 team had Rohan Kanhai, Wes Hall and Garfield Sobers. Sobers played on this ground.

The Eden has had its say too: several feet of water through here in January 2005, destroying the pavilion, and again in the 2009 floods.

It is one of the easier clubs on this site to get into. There is no charge to walk down and watch when a match is on, the bar is open with it, and the place is hired out for private events. Children are catered for on match days with nets and, on the right afternoon, a bouncy castle. That makes it closer to a park with a bar than a members' club, and unlike Courtfield or Upperby you do not need anyone to sign you in. The licence type and the CAMRA description tell you how a club is regulated, not whether you will be served; at Edenside the answer is that you will, and you can bring the children.