Kennington Common | |
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![]() Part of Kennington Common that is now Kennington Park. | |
Type | Common land |
Location | London Borough of Lambeth |
Coordinates | 51°28′59″N0°06′25″W / 51.483°N 0.107°W |
Kennington Common was a swathe of common land mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth. It was one of the earliest venues for cricket around London, with matches played between 1724 and 1785. [1] [2] The common was also used for public executions, fairs and public gatherings. Important orators spoke there, addressing crowds numbering tens of thousands.
In 1600, the common was bounded on the south west by Vauxhall Creek. The common extended over marshy land to the south west of the Roman road called Stane Street, now Kennington Park Road. There is a 1660 record of a common keeper being paid for grazing. In 1661, the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens were laid out nearby (its location is noted as the Vauxhall End at The Oval). The large open space was often used for a variety of purposes by people living on the south bank of the River Thames.
Location | Kennington, Surrey |
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Home club | London Cricket Club (occasionally) |
Establishment | by 1724 |
Last used | 1785 |
Cricket has been played at Kennington since the early 18th century. The earliest recorded match at the venue was a London v Dartford match in June 1724. The following year players were known to have used the Horns tavern as their clubhouse and in August 1726, a combined London and Surrey XI played a side led by Edwin Stead for a purse of 25 guineas. [2] Matches were played on the common throughout the 18th century. A London v Sevenoaks game on 12 July 1731 is the first known to have been played in an enclosed ground. [2]
From the late 1730s, the London club increasingly used the Artillery Ground for home matches and the common became one of several home venues used by Surrey sides. [3]
Other sports to have been periodically played on the common included quoits and bowls.
People would gather at the common to listen to public speakers, both religious and political. In 1739, the Methodists John Wesley and George Whitefield preached to an audience of 30,000. [4]
On 10 April 1848, Irish Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor addressed up to 50,000 people over a petition in support of the Land Plan.
The Surrey gallows were where now stands St. Mark's Church, not far from Oval tube station. [5] These could be used the for the whole county but were overwhelmingly a south London equivalent of Tyburn as the global city's urbanisation had already swept into the county of Surrey (before the formation of the London County Council 90 years after its last execution). Public executions were conducted frequently in years when the common was also hosting matches. At least 129 men and 12 women were executed on site. The first person was Sarah Elston who was burned at the stake on 24 April 1678 for the killing of her husband. The last person executed was a forger on 5 August 1799.
In 1746, the Jacobite officer Francis Towneley, along with other members of the Manchester Regiment, who had been captured during the failed Jacobite rising of 1745, were convicted of high treason and condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered on the common on 30 July. However, by then executioners possessed some discretion as to how much the condemned should suffer before death. Towneley was killed before his body was eviscerated. His head was placed on a pike on Temple Bar. [6]
The common continued to stage executions until the end of the 18th century while fairs, orators and other popular events continued into the 19th century.
The lords of the manor and church of the parish were allowed to enclose some of the commons the land in the 19th century. Under a scheme sponsored by the royal family, the remainder of the common was enclosed in the mid 19th century. [7] Kennington Park, which opened in 1854, was created using the land between Kennington Park Road and St Agnes Place. In the marked growth of London until World War I, it was reduced to about its current size.
Cricket remains at Kennington. In 1845 the newly formed Surrey County Cricket Club established The Oval (formerly the Kennington Oval) on part of the old common that was used as a market garden. [8]
Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the Lambeth and St George's parishes of those boroughs respectively. It is located 1.4 miles (2.3 km) south of Charing Cross in Inner London and is identified as a local centre in the London Plan. It was a royal manor in the parish of St Mary, Lambeth in the county of Surrey and was the administrative centre of the parish from 1853. Proximity to central London was key to the development of the area as a residential suburb and it was incorporated into the metropolitan area of London in 1855.
Vauxhall is an area in London and is located in the London Borough of Lambeth and is in Central London. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.
Lambeth is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth. Lambeth was an ancient parish in the county of Surrey. It is situated 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Charing Cross, across the river from Westminster Palace. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area experienced some slight growth in the medieval period as part of the manor of Lambeth Palace. By the Victorian era the area had seen significant development as London expanded, with dense industrial, commercial and residential buildings located adjacent to one another. The changes brought by World War II altered much of the fabric of Lambeth. Subsequent development in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has seen an increase in the number of high-rise buildings. The area is home to the International Maritime Organization. Lambeth is home to one of the largest Portuguese-speaking communities in the UK, and Portuguese is the second most commonly spoken language in Lambeth after English.
The Oval, currently named for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since it was opened in 1845. It was the first ground in England to host international Test cricket in September 1880. The final Test match of the English season is traditionally played there.
Oval is an area in south London, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is the part of Kennington around The Oval cricket ground, situated 2.1 miles (3.38 km) to the southeast of Charing Cross.
Surrey County Cricket Club is a first-class club in county cricket, one of eighteen in the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Surrey, including areas that now form South London. Teams representing the county are recorded from 1709 onwards; the current club was founded in 1845 and has held first-class status continuously since then. Surrey have played in every top-level domestic cricket competition in England, including every edition of the County Championship.
Kennington Park is a public park in Kennington, south London and lies between Kennington Park Road and St. Agnes Place. It was opened in 1854 on the site of what had been Kennington Common, where the Chartists gathered for their biggest "monster rally" on 10 April 1848. Soon after this demonstration the common was enclosed and, sponsored by the royal family, made into a public park.
The earliest definite reference to the sport of cricket is dated Monday, 17 January 1597. It is a deposition in the records of a legal case at Guildford, Surrey, regarding usage of a parcel of land. John Derrick, a coroner, testified that he had played cricket on the land when he was a boy in about 1550. Derrick's testimony is confirmation that the sport was being played by the middle of the 16th century, but its true origin is unknown. All that can be said with a fair degree of certainty is that its beginning was earlier than 1550, probably somewhere in south-east England within the counties of Kent, Sussex and Surrey. There have been suggestions that it can be traced to Flemish immigrants then resident in the area. The origin of the word cricket could derive from the Flemish word krick(-e), meaning a stick. Unlike other games with batsmen, bowlers and fielders, such as stoolball and rounders, cricket can only be played on relatively short grass, especially as the ball was delivered along the ground until the 1760s. Forest clearings and land where sheep had grazed would have been suitable places to play.
In the years from 1726 to 1750, cricket became an established sport in London and the south-eastern counties of England. In 1726, it was already a thriving sport in the south east and, though limited by the constraints of travel at the time, it was slowly gaining adherents elsewhere with references being found in other southern counties. Having been essentially a rural pastime for well over a century, cricket became a focus for wealthy patrons and gamblers whose interests funded its growth throughout the 18th century.
Edwin Stead was a noted patron of English cricket, particularly of Kent teams in the 1720s. He usually captained his teams but nothing is known about his ability as a player. He was born at Harrietsham in Kent and died in London.
Dartford Brent was an extensive area of common land on the outskirts of Dartford in Kent. Historically, it was the scene of a confrontation between King Henry VI and Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in 1452 and in 1555 thousands of spectators were to witness the burning to death at the stake of Christopher Ward, a Dartford linen weaver, executed for his Protestant faith.
In English cricket, the years 1826–1845 were dominated by the roundarm bowling issue, which was resolved when the style was legalised in 1835, and by the formation of the first modern county clubs between 1839 and 1845.
Surrey county cricket teams have been traced back to the 17th century, but Surrey's involvement in cricket goes back much further than that. The first definite mention of cricket anywhere in the world is dated c.1550 in Guildford.
County cricket teams representing Middlesex have been traced back to the 18th century, although for long periods the county was secondary to the London Cricket Club which played at the Artillery Ground. Middlesex teams played at various grounds throughout what is now the Greater London area. Islington and Uxbridge were often used but home matches were also played on Kennington Common and in Berkshire. Middlesex teams were less frequent in the 19th century until 1859 when the Walker family of Southgate became involved in county cricket.
The A202 is a primary A road in London. It runs from New Cross Gate to London Victoria station. A section of the route forms a part of the London Inner Ring Road between Vauxhall and Victoria, known as Vauxhall Bridge Road.
The Montpelier Cricket Club was prominent in English cricket from about 1796, when it began to compete against Marylebone Cricket Club and other leading "town clubs", until 1845 when its members were the prime movers in the formation of Surrey County Cricket Club. The club was based at Aram's New Ground in Montpelier Gardens, Walworth, Surrey. It was also known as the "Bee Hive Ground" because of its proximity to the Bee Hive pub in Walworth.
Holt Pound is a hamlet on the A325 road and two side roads and forms a slight projection of the county borders into Surrey in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is between Bordon several miles south and Farnham, which is beyond a strip of its nearest village, Rowledge, which remains its ecclesiastical parish in Surrey and Wrecclesham which touches the town. The village is between the Alice Holt Forest and fields known jointly as Old Kiln Farm and the Holt Pound Enclosure.
Representing Kingston upon Thames in Surrey, the original Kingston Cricket Club was prominent in the 18th century, taking part in known matches from 1720 to 1767. According to surviving records, it had no specific venue and is known to have played at both Kennington Common and Moulsey Hurst. Kingston teams are recorded, either individually or jointly with other clubs, in eleven known major matches.
This is a list of the toponymy of street names in the London district of Vauxhall. The area has no formally defined boundaries – those utilised here are Black Prince Road to the north, Kennington Road to the north-east, Kennington Park Road/Clapham Road to the south-east, Miles Street/Fentiman Road to the south, and Wandsworth Road/Nine Elms Lane/river Thames to the west.