A prouder Village XI could scarcely have taken the field at Burtonhole Lane on May 4, 1946. After years of wartime exile — drifting from ground to borrowed ground — we had at last found home. For the team that stepped out onto the turf that day, it must have felt like a glimpse of heaven.

Negotiations between Mill Hill Village Cricket Club and Hendon Council over the lease of a ground had been taking place since autumn 1945. The club had asked for exclusive use of the pitch at Mill Hill Park, which it had been sharing during the war. This plea was rejected. Instead, the council's Estates Parks and Allotment Committee offered the club exclusive use of approximately five and a half acres at Burtonhole Lane Open Space, for a period of seven years at a rental of £100 per annum, approximately £4,000 in today’s money.

On September 24, 1945, the council’s borough surveyor reported that the club had accepted the offer. The remains of the old pavilion on the site were included in the lease. At a meeting on January 14, 1946, the council agreed to grant a lease to the club from May 1 of that year.

Howard Mallatratt, author of “The Story of Cricket at Mill Hill Village 1852-1952,” a copy of which lies in the MCC Library at Lord’s, writes: “The Burton Hole Lane project comprised two adjoining fields with a fairly large old fashioned wooden pavilion [in the same spot as the current clubhouse]. The ground had the advantage of being off the beaten track in quite beautiful open country. The northern boundary of the two fields constituted the old county boundary between Middlesex and Hertfordshire — an added inducement to would-be big hitters to smite the ball out of the county!

80th anniversary fixture vs Sutton CC

“It had another great advantage, the area was big enough to develop and enable the Club to field more sides than just the first and second elevens. For a period, two pitches were cut out on the main front field, with another on the back field. It also means that serious consideration could be given to extending the Club to accommodate a football side in the winter months without seriously encroaching on the cricket squares. No wonder the offer was taken seriously by the Club’s committee.”

On April 19, 1946, Mill Hill Village Cricket club Chairman Pat Geoghegan announced at a general meeting that the club was to become tenants of Burtonhole Lane from May 1.

Burtonhole Lane lies off the Ridgeway, the elevated curved spine that runs through the heart of the old Mill Hill Village from which the cricket club gets its name. At the foot of Burtonhole Lane, adjacent to the front pitch, lies a farm of the same name, which dates back to at least the early 17th century. It remains a working farm to this day. Many an opposition cricketer will have been startled by the cattle’s grunting, snoring and bleating over the years. To the north of the front pitch, beyond a tall row of Leylandii trees planted around 20 years ago, lies Folly Brook and the four-acre Folly Farm, no longer a working farmstead but a secluded private home with uninterrupted views over the ancient hay meadows of Totteridge Valley.

Burtonhole Lane’s own five and a half acres would be a game changer for the club, providing an area large enough for the club to field more than just a 1st and 2nd XI. It was also large enough to host football in the winter months. For the 1946 cricket season, the club’s stated aim was to field three teams every weekend.

“In those early days there were two cricket squares on the front field at Burtonhole Lane with overlapping boundaries and the field at the back was football only, with two pitches,” remembers former 1st XI bowler Ron Sargeant, who played for the Village from 1952-1967. “There was no actual road across the top of the ground like there is now and everyone had to drive in over the outfield of the top square, which was aligned up/down the slope,” adds Sargeant, who first came to Burtonhole Lane as a boy in 1946 with his father Cecil, who played for the 3rd XI.

Club appeals for memories and photos

Details about that first game are scarce. There’s no scorecard. Sutton CC have no records of the match. All we know is what was printed on p5 of the Hendon and Finchley Times on May 10, 1946. The brief match report appears sandwiched between write-ups on local football, rugby and bowls. Also on the page are adverts for the latest movies (“The Postman Always Rings Twice”) and a cartoon plugging National Savings (“Let’s plump for the safety of National Savings, every time!”)

Under the headline “Mill Hill Village” the match report (pictured above) reads:

“In a low scoring game on Saturday, the Village celebrated their first appearance on their new ground by beating Sutton by 11 runs. The Village scored 53, Shankland batting almost throughout the innings; Jones 4 for 5. Sutton mustered 42 in reply, W. Pestell (5 for 3) bowling exceptionally well.”

W. Pestell is William, aka Bill, a longtime member whose family members, Ken and Derek, also played for the club.

Fittingly, George Shankland — “a very careful bat who rarely took any risks,” in Mallatratt’s words — played the decisive hand in that Burtonhole Lane opener. He would go on to shape much of the club’s postwar success. Mallatratt, writing much later in 1977, said: “Shankland did a great amount of work… and was largely instrumental in putting it on the map as one of the foremost club cricket organisations in the North London area. As Chairman of the Club and later as its President, the first after the war, he could be safely said to be the father of it as we know it today. It was largely through his initiative and drive that the present satisfactory status of the Club has been achieved.”

Alongside Shankland and Bill Pestell, who else might have taken the field that day for that first match at Burtonhole Lane 80 years ago?

Remembering the 1st XI lineup from around this time, Ron Sargeant remembers: “John Eve and Mike Hobson opened the batting, Johnny Grosvenor came in at three with wicketkeeper-batsman Bill Carden at four. Then came all-rounder Reg Bibby [who took 4 for 9 against Besborough, 7 for 11 against Old Michendenians and 5 for 11 against UCS Old Boys in the 1946 season], Shankland, Arthur Spratt, spinner Johnny Butler and the two fast bowlers Eric Heath and John Stanley.

Mallatratt describes opener Eve as “a cheerful chap... an outstanding cricketer who was a decided asset and delight to watch.”

Other players in and around the 1st XI in the immediate post-war era included Colin Alcock, John Stanley, Tommy Rawles, Len Merrilees, Ken Davies and the Australian Peter de la Mere.

A Mill Hill Village Cricket Club XI pictured in 1946, featuring George Shankland (back row, fourth from left.)

Bill Carden, reappointed captain for the 1946 season, was a long-standing fixture in the 1st XI batting lineup. He joined the club aged 15 (he also represented Watford Boys at football and during the war played football for Mill Hill Village) and broke several club records, including scoring 963 runs in a season, in 1947. He was the only pre-war member of the cricket section still playing for the first team in the 1950s. He also founded Mill Hill Hockey Club.

The low-scoring nature of our first game at Burtonhole Lane was typical of the era. “The 1st XI was actually a very strong side but the wickets played on were nowhere near the standard they are today so low-scoring games were a norm,” says Sargeant. Match reports in the local press from the time confirm as much.

The 1st XI went the first eight matches of the season undefeated, notching their first loss against Old Lyonians. That season the Village defeated Nimrod, with whom they had shared a pitch at Mill Hill Park during World War II.

A 2nd XI (confusingly named the A team at this time) and a Sunday XI also played at Burtonhole Lane in this 1946 season. In all, nearly 50 games were played across the season, home and away, including a nine-wicket humbling for our A team against our local rivals Mill Hill.

Work at Burtonhole Lane continued, and by 1947, the club was ready to field three sides on both Saturdays and Sundays. The fixture list toughened up too, with matches against established sides like Cockfosters, Barnet and Pinner. In August, the club capped the season with a successful tour of Sussex.

Mill Hill Village Cricket Club’s progress since its inception in 1868, when it played on a cow-cropped meadow by the Adam & Eve pub, had been steady rather than swift. That low-scoring 11-run win against Sutton was scrappy, but what counted was that Mill Hill Village was back on a ground they could call their own, with room to grow. The direction of travel was clear enough. Burtonhole Lane remains our home to this day.

Mill Hill Village Cricket Club turns back the clock for a special 80th anniversary friendly match against Sutton Cricket Club on Sunday, May 17 at Burtonhole Lane. All are welcome.

With thanks to Ron Sargeant and Hugh Petrie at Hendon Library.