Archive Room Updates

We are always delighted when one of our own HCH Directors has another clear out at home and parts with another valued piece of their own Hampshire Cricket related collection to enhance the bigger HCH Collection in our Archive Room. Dave Allen is always dropping off more of his own "treasures" for Glen and Ray, our Archive Room Curators, to find the best place to display or file away in the Archive Room. Dave has donated a number of Arlott books recently and his second edition of Padwick's A Bibliography of Cricket now resides in our Collection. This month, regular donor, David Ackland, also passed over the whole of his own scorecard collection, as well as some superb scrapbooks covering each Hampshire season from 1967 to 1971. These complement our fine collection of scrapbooks dating back to the early 1960's. John Winter will look to feature the 1969 season, using David's scrapbook for that year, in the coming months in his monthly 2025 Season Journal. This can be found under the Memories Tab at the top of this screen. David's favourite game is also from the 1969 season and appears as number 18 in the My Favourite Game Series on this site again under the Memories Tab.  

We were delighted when Nigel Roberts contacted us here at HCH to donate this Philip Mead Stand sign from the old Northlands Road ground. It came together with a tile from the Pavilion Roof and both now take their place proudly in the Archive Room Collection in the Shane Warne Stand.  The right hand picture below shows Chris Smith warming up in front of the Philip Mead Stand, with the sign clearly visible back then.

We were pleased to receive a significant number of Hampshire Handbooks, dating right back to 1953, from the Potter family in Basingstoke. When Glen drove up to take receipt of these on behalf of HCH, he paid a an early Spring visit to May's Bounty which brought back many happy memories. Our sincere thanks to Sarah for contacting us and making this donation on behalf of her family. Sarah wrote to us about how her father, Philip, who very sadly passed away in September, was a lifelong member of Hampshire Cricket and devoted supporter. 

We were delighted to receive in the post a 1965 Lancashire v Hampshire scorecard from the Hughes family in Warrington. It was a truly historic game for our club. In the 13 run win, Bob Cottam returned figures of 9-25 from 11.1 oves. No Hampshire bowler has ever returned better figures in a single innings of a first-class match in our entire history.

We were delighted that Hampshire's Tim Tremlett was able to hand over to HCH a number of books and pictures (including the one below) which have been donated by the Price family.

Imagine how pleased we were to receive the following e-mail here at HCH in September 2024

Mark Butler and his family have lived for 7 generations in Hambledon, until the house was sold in 2022. One of the more valuable artefacts in the house was a screen with a lot of old score cards, including one when Hambledon defeated the rest of England in 1777, thanks to the skills of the likes of John Small and Richard Nyren. His family has been very concerned that such an important part of cricket’s history should never be lost, particularly as at is still in such good condition. The screen was housed at Lords for some time (back in the 90’s), but the then new curator had different plans, so it was returned to their Hambledon home. Their thought has always been that it remains part of Hampshire history, and Mark therefore contacted Hampshire Cricket Heritage via e-mail last month for us to take custody of it. Not only has the Butler family very kindly donated it to HCH, Mark even dropped it off with us at the Utilita Bowl - see picture of Mark above.  We can't say thank you enough for the culture of giving that now exists towards Hampshire Cricket Heritage and we are only too delighted to take receipt of this unique screen from the extremely generous Butler family. They have also provided information on the screen for us to publish on our Website. The link below takes you to that piece in the Other Items in the Archive Room Collection tab on this site. It includes research from Ian Maun, the notable cricket Historian, who spent many an hour studying the screen for one of his books.