Heritage in Somerset

During the Somerset fixture in September 2025, two of us from HCH visited the fantastic Somerset Cricket Museum. As there was no play on the first day, it was the perfect place to while away a couple of hours, fully immersing ourselves in Somerset and England women's cricket. We are extremely grateful to Mike Unwin at the Somerset Cricket Museum because he also contacted us before that Somerset v Hampshire game, offering some Hampshire cricket related ephemera. It had been donated to them by the late Adrian Burton. Adrian, who lived in Weymouth, was a collector and enthusiast who supported a number of southern based county sides. His scrapbooks about Hampshire cricket included ones detailing the end of play at Northlands Road in 2000, cricket at Bournemouth, Basingstoke and on the Isle of Wight. They have been put together with great care over many decades. In addition, we have been donated from his collection a full set of Handbooks since 1950, as well as some of the more valuable pre-1939 red Hampshire cricket guides, a Leo Harrison blazer and belt, scorecards, books, cigarette cards and plaques. Many other County Heritage collections will also have benefited from the Somerset Museum's generosity. 

When we picked up all of the Hampshire material from Taunton this week at the County Ground, there were boxes and boxes of items ready for collection for other counties. We would like to place on record that we are extremely grateful to the Somerset Museum for donating all of this to us from the incredible collection that Adrian assembled during his lifetime. It is a real privilege to be able to add some unique Hampshire items from the late Adrian Burton to our growing collection in the Archive Room in the Shane Warne Stand. We can't recommend enough a trip to the Museum and the Second Hand Book Centre (behind it) at the County Ground in Taunton. All of the staff were incredibly helpful and clearly devoted to all things Somerset cricket. The quality of the displays is extremely high, with a fine interactive element available for younger visitors. A must for all cricket heritage lovers around the world.