OUR CLUB

Cricket has been played in Heytesbury since around 1870, although it would be many years before Heytesbury Cricket Club was formally established. Its historic ground at Heytesbury Park originally lay within the estate of Heytesbury House, before the construction of the A36 bypass divided the estate in 1985.

 

A defining chapter in the Club’s history began in 1933, when poet and writer Siegfried Sassoon purchased Heytesbury House. A passionate cricket enthusiast, Sassoon helped bring greater structure to the village game. The team was drawn largely from workers on the estate, who joined him in fixtures against neighbouring villages, Army sides and, most famously, an XI assembled by his friend and fellow poet Edmund Blunden.

These remarkable matches form part of a rich cricketing and literary history and are documented in Duncan Hamilton’s One Long and Beautiful Summer. In 2014, the Sassoon–Blunden fixture was brought back to life in a special commemorative match involving Edmund Blunden’s grandson alongside descendants of some of the estate workers who had played at Heytesbury generations before.

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League Cricket and Changing Times

 

League cricket arrived at Heytesbury in the 1980s, bringing with it new changing facilities and a more competitive era for the Club. The construction of the A36 bypass in 1985 dramatically changed the setting of the ground, separating Heytesbury House from the village and reshaping the historic estate.

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By the early 1990s, the Club came perilously close to folding. It survived thanks to the determination of local villagers, who rallied together to ensure the team could complete the season. Their efforts preserved cricket in Heytesbury and laid the foundations for a remarkable revival, including rising in the ranks to Division 2.

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The End of an Era and a New Chapter

 

At the end of the 2023 season, the Club was given notice to leave its historic home at Heytesbury Park, bringing to a close more than a century of cricket associated with the ground.

 

Today the Club’s cricketing activities are centred at Sutton Veny. While leaving Heytesbury Park marked the end of an important chapter, it has also opened a new one — allowing the Club to build for the future while preserving a history stretching back more than 150 years.