Barrow Gurney Cricket club was founded in 1874 in the North Somerset village, by a group of local people. Copies of the founding documents are displayed in our pavilion.
Initially cricket was played in a field just off the main road in Barrow Gurney village but in the 1930s the club arrived at its current ground in Hobbs Lane, leasing the land from the local landowners, the Gibbs family.
From this time regular Saturday cricket was played, all friendlies in the early days, and followed the traditional single innings declaration format of the time, although declarations were relatively rare as 100 was a good score on the pitches of the time. Players were attracted, as they are to this day, by the beautiful setting of the ground, and the team was frequently augmented by dragging a few locals from the village pub, The Princes Motto, from which the club takes its insignia.
The club has scorebooks dating back to 1960 when the team was led by Gerry Weaden. The club was a founder member of the North Somerset League in 1974 and then joined the Bristol iand District League in the 1980s. By this time the vision and passion of Gordon Ladd started to see major improvements to the ground and plans started to be made to secure the future of the club.
In the nineties junior cricket began and continued into the 21st century, providing the club with a very young first eleven by 2020.
Having purchased the ground in 2000, a new pavilion was built in 2004, inspired by the forward thinking of the then Chairman, Gordon Ladd, and the bar within has provided a much-needed revenue. Recent Chairman, Pete Holdaway has overseen much improvement at the ground through the years and sight screens, covers and an electronic scoreboard now enhance the playing area. 2023 saw the launch of Barrow Gurney TV, livestreaming our home games. Pete has also been responsible for the quality of the playing surface being acknowledges as one of the best at our level of cricket.
A ladies’ changing room was added in 2018 to reflect that several female players play in our sides. Ellie Holdaway represented Somerset Girls at all age groups, whilst Bernie Forge represented Somerset and Cornwall in the County Championship. Bernie became the first woman to make a century in the Bristol & District League in 2016.The club has always thought it has been very lucky to play our great game in such picturesque surroundings and are pleased that this view is shared by so many of our visiting teams and supporters.
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