The final test match of the summer is taking place at The Oval – I refuse to call it The Kia Oval, although I just have – and whilst Sri Lanka are hoping to avoid a 3-0 series defeat, and England are hoping for a 3-0 series victory, my thoughts go back forty-eight years to August 1976, and my visit to The Oval which featured in the post about The Giraffe Tavern in Kennington/Walworth.
Forty-eight years ago two cricketers stood out in my mind. The first was John Edrich, one of my boyhood heroes, who has managed to make an appearance in a pair of previous posts, viz the ones about The Globe in Blofield and The Compasses in Norwich. The other was the West Indian fast bowler Michael Holding. I had been hoping to see both of them play but Edrich had been dropped following the third test at Old Trafford after scoring just 8 and 24 in his two innings. That game proved to be his final match for England despite the fact that he ended up topping the side's batting averages for the series. Whilst Edrich didn't feature in the match on his county's home ground, Michael Whispering Death Holding did, eventually taking fourteen of the twenty English wickets to fall.
Forty-eight years on and another couple of Cricketers are occupying my thoughts. Not Ollie Pope or Ben Duckett, but a pair of bygones that used to operate in the vicinity of the Kennington Oval.
The first of these is the Cricketers which used to serve from Kennington Oval itself. Number 17 to be precise, although it has also been listed as being at 32 Clayton Street.
As implied, this bygone boozer used to sit on the corner of Kennington Oval and Clayton Street where it can be seen to the right of the iconic, Grade II listed, Gasholder No. 1, in this 1934 aerial view of the cricket ground.
The Cricketers seems to have first made its appearance in middle in the 1860s. There's no mention of it in the 1861 census, but by the end of the decade one Robert Palmer Winch is recorded as being a beer retailer at 32 Clayton Street in the Post Office's London directory.
By the mid 1870s, Robert had moved on to a pub in Westminster and John Henry Newing and his wife Charlotte had arrived. They'd earlier been at the Friend in Need in Dover.
John died in December 1878 but Charlotte stayed on to continue running the pub at number 32.
She'd moved out by the time that the headcounters came calling again and Alfred Skinner who'd been a bottle dealer, living a little further along Clayton Street, had replaced her.
The Skinner family were at the wicket for over half a century. Alfred was still there in 1900...
...and when he'd had enough his son Joseph came to the crease.
The pub was rebuilt in the 1930s, during Joseph's tenure, on the opposite corner of Clayton Street. Boroughphotos.org has this image of the original pub.
Probate records show us that Joseph was still at the Cricketers when his spell at the crease came to an end at St. Thomas's Hospital on 19th October 1946.
The Cricketers, in its second innings, managed to bat on until 2002 since when it's remained empty, falling into ever increasing levels of dereliction.
In 2023, planning permission was approved for its demolition and the construction of residential units on the site. At least the plan featured a new ground floor pub.
But that's not the only Cricketers that used to exist in the area. A quarter of an hour's walk away, along Kennington Park Road, and you could find another.
...but, in my digging and delving, I've come across a reference to a William Monk being listed in Pigot's 1827 directory at the Cricketers on Kennington Road, so he'd probably been there for quite a while. However, he didn't remain there much longer for his bails were dislodged the following year, causing his widow, Sarah, to take over.
The address at the time was Orange Row, Kennington Road and Sarah was still there in 1851...
...but she, herself, died in 1855 leaving son Henry in charge of pouring the pints.
Henry and wife Edith were batting on in 1861...
...and a decade later Edith, having been widowed, continued in residence at The Cricketers.
Edith retired from the field the following year, with a John Olding coming to the crease, after the Monks had had a stand of around half a century.
Stumps were finally called on the Newington Butts Cricketers around 2007 and I think I'll call stumps at this point too as there seems to be a cricket match on the telly to watch. Beside you've probably had enough of the cricketing metaphors.
But before I go, here's a view looking north-east along Newington Butts taken, judging by the style of car, around 1920. The Cricketers is on the extreme left, advertising its wares from Barclay Perkins.
And here, courtesy of Mr. Google, is a similar view from a couple of months ago.
Barclay Perkins merged with Courage in 1955 and a Courage sign is still visible if we look closely.
The former pub now contains an outlet for Domino's. Pizza! Just the job for munching with a beer or two whilst watching the cricket.
Thanks to George Rex for the use of his photograph.
The Ordnance Survey map extract is copyright and has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the terms of this CC BY licence.
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