Deep Mid-Wicket for a Reason

As the name suggests, the cottage is located overlooking Buxworth Cricket Club and if you stay here anytime during the cricket season you will no doubt see activity at the club. That might be a practice session, a match or Allan, the head groundsman who works tirelessly at the club, preparing the ground.

The club, founded in 1848, changed it’s name along with the village in the 1930’s from Bugsworth to Buxworth. The club originally played in the High Peak League but then in 1974 moved to the Derbyshire & Cheshire League where they still play.
It is a very active club with two senior and Under 11s, 13s, 15s and 17s teams playing in local leagues. The Under 13’s won the league in 2009 which was the first trophy Buxworth juniors have ever won.

Watching Cricket

Watching a village cricket match is a great way of spending an afternoon if it’s warm enough to be sitting about! If you do enjoy watching cricket you can make the most of the cottage location by taking a cup of tea or a glass of wine and sitting out on a sunny afternoon and chatting with the local supporters who will be watching the match.

Don’t be surprised though if you are approached by Ruth (the chief fund raiser for the club) to put your hand in your pocket for a raffle ticket or anything else she can think of to raise funds!

The club does not have a bar and is never used for social functions so there is never any problem with noise in an evening.

That said one day in the year the club host a very competitive and very noisy T/20 tournament to raise funds. If it is a nice day the ground will be very busy and there will be a BBQ and some loud music. It is great fun to watch as the cricket is very competitive. However if this is not your thing we can only apologise and suggest a day away from the cottage.
Cricket Ball WARNING
Because the ground is only relatively small, during the course of a match and some practice sessions, balls do get hit over the wall towards the houses and parked cars! We would advise that on cricket days (see the schedule in the cottage) if you are not out for the day you move your car further up to the end of the lane. The lane does get busy on a Saturday during the season from about 1pm onwards. Move your car early and you should easily be able to park away from the house. Most matches are over by 7pm when you can retrieve your car.

An Unexpected Family Connection

Having never had any connection with Derbyshire before, we bought the house based entirely on it’s close proximity to the big hills of the High Peak and the great views. So it was a shock when three years on we found an unexpected and slightly spooky family connection.

As the cricket club website explains

The name “Hill” is synonymous with Buxworth. At one time in the 50s, no less than eight Hills turned out for the 1st team, of these Bernard & Alan went on to better themselves. Bernard playing in the Staffs League and Alan (Bud) playing for Derbyshire for over fourteen seasons and scoring over 13,000 first class runs.

Having recently started researching our family tree, my father discovered that my Great Great Grandfather and his family were part of the illustrious local Hill family and lived in Buxworth! We have still not identified the house where the family lived but even so the connection to the village and potentially the cricket club was very unexpected and a bit spooky!