Work in progress (Updated 20/10/24).
Tilbury cricket history - the lost Tilbury cricket ground - Tilbury/Thurrock Interknit cricket club Siley Weirs
The information below in italics used to be easily accessed on the SECDB website, but is now only available through archive sources. There's not a lot of info there and it only vaguely describes where the cricket ground was...
Interknit cricket club was formed in 1918 by William Bannister with his friends from the firm of R. N. H. Green and Silley Weir. They first played on a ground at Dock Road, Tilbury. The pitch preparation on the ground was done by the club’s own members in their spare time, as this was a time before the days when the local council began maintaining pitches.
The ground was let to them by a Mr. Bill Stickings, who, in order to avoid paying higher rates on a developed field, let cattle graze on it! Mr. Bannister recalled: “The outfield was a bit rough, but we enjoyed ourselves, both clearing it and playing on it!”
Once they had their ground, players began to think of what to call themselves when writing away for fixtures. They wanted to maintain their connection with the firms for whom the majority of the team worked, but also wanted to remain independent. They finally chose the name “Interknit” for this was the telegraphic address of R. N. H. Green and Silley Weir. This encouraged the firm to help the club and a hut, chairs and table were provided for changing and for tea. But after this initial aid and interest, no real notice was taken of the club, except for the annual Firm v Club match.
“The club has always been self-supporting” said Mr. Bannister. “More so when we moved up to Blackshots to play”. This occurred in 1936, when the Council started to develop Blackshots Playing Fields, they laid the first pitch as an experiment to see if Council maintained grounds would be a success. Blackshots, at that time, was known locally as the ‘clover field’. With their experience of preparing pitches at Dock Road, they were able to assist the Blackshots groundsman, Harry Goodrich, a great deal. At the time, there was no water supply and buckets of water had to be carried across the ground to water the pitch!
In those days, Interknit played teams like Grays Recreation CC and Chadwell CC, who had a very strong side before the (second) world war. When war broke out, many players joined the services and clubs were short of players. Interknit joined forces with Chadwell and for the duration of the war their fixtures were as one. At the end of hostilities, the London branch of Green and Silly Weir formed a cricket club….and also called themselves Interknit! In order to keep the clubs distinct, our local side altered their name slightly to Thurrock Interknit. Gradually, the team drifted away from the firm to the extent that by 1960, there were only two workers from the firm still playing. But the club was flourishing as a private, self-supporting organisation, like so many others.
The club had a bright future. In the early 1960’s, their captain was Jim Reader, one of the best cricketers in the local area and they had the services of a promising youngster, Ivor Blows, who was an aggressive batsman. Derek Carter was a fine all-rounder who was also a member of the strong Thurrock Interknit club.
I've not done a lot on this recently as I hit a brick wall with a lack of information . The work previously done was on another blog that I'll move over to here. I've had a resurgence due to finding a map website that had links to ariel photography and it's the ariel photography that has allowed for better analysis and evidence.
The premise of the blog initially was triggered by the loss of cricket grounds/pitches in the South Essex region and an idea to photograph the spaces as they are now. During these investigations I heard about a cricket team that was connected to Siley Weirs an engineering company situated in Tilbury docks and they seem to pre-date Tilbury cricket club and as far as I can make out they were called either Tilbury Interknit cricket club or potentially Thurrock Interknit cricket club.
Most of the information that is available is via Tilbury & Chadwell memories, where people have been posted for the most part anonymous images with people chipping in with names of the players, but little more and despite asking I've not been able to glean a great deal.
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| (Fig) Click image for source |
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| (Fig 2). Click image for source |
Maps as a rule are pretty useless for figuring out the locations of cricket grounds and the best you can do is identify playing fields if your lucky.
Discussion with regards names copied across from the website...
"To add a few names to the photo back row 2nd from the left is my brother Peter Taylor, far right of the back row is my brother in law Albert Tyson and sitting in the front row between Bert Avery and Bill Stevens is John Brownlie Albert is also in the small photo at the front with I think is his daughter Pauline.
Top Photo, Top Row. 3rd from left is Charlie Mann (my late uncle) and 4th from left John Cantwell.
I think top first right was Tom Cloak . Then bottom second right look’s like Bill Stevens Elaine nee [ Templeman ]
Wonder, if possible, anyone could recognize those included within the small photo (I myself to the right, one of the little girls). Long time ago say approx. late 40’s btw my father, Ted Thompson, is part of the “Dockers” team. Sandra Adcock"
The breakthrough came this week when looking on Facebook someone asked a question about a historic location in Tilbury. My older son is GIS expert and when he was doing his degree he introduced me to some resources and remembering these I went looking and then discovered the website that led to the breakthrough.
Fig 2 "Tilbury Dockers cricket team" is probably the most useful image, dated 1950 it's set on a cricket ground indicated by the inclusion of the roller. It's the buildings in the background and their proximity which is the most useful aspect as this potentially places the ground relatively close to the docks. The buildings typical of the period between the dock being built and what I remember from the 1960's.
Prior to this post (2024) the trail had gone cold and since then a lot of the information that was freely available the SECDB website seems to have been hidden, the HTML links in my previous posts no longer working. Part of the reason being the organisations that held the information have amalgamated and possibly those that curated the information having passed on leaving behind others who are no longer directly connected to the period, events, people and places. I've requested information from these organisations but I'm not hopeful.
The name of the team
At the moment this is contentious and based on this post here https://www.tilburyandchadwellmemories.org.uk/content/people/sports/more-cricket-memorabilia
"His father, Horace or Horry as he was known, was a stalwart of Interknit which had been formed, before World War 2, by workers of the dock firm Green and Siley Wier".
- Interknit cc
- Tilbury Dock cc
- Green & Siley Weir cc
All possibly referring to the same team? Interknit gets mentioned during the 1950's as one of 40 friendly teams playing in the Thurrock area see here
Recap
Previously I'd ascertained some facts.
West Tilbury had a cricket ground at the top of Cooper Shaw Hill on the right accessed via Church Rd. This is now a paddock and has horses on it next door to Condovers scout campsite. The pavilion is still there and has a preservation order on it preventing the people that use it currently from structurally changing it. I know the people and visited the site some years ago and had a look and they've built a structure around it which acts to preserve the pavilion inside. The design is unusual and not as I recalled it as a scout in the 1970's and this possibly the reason for the preservation order? (More on this below). I've been unable to find any images of the ground or any associated images.
Tilbury Fort Scene of the only cricket match played where the opponents got so wound up over the outcome that they killed each other with a handful of people losing their lives. This is pretty well documented in a number or places and happened in the 1700's and was probably played within the confines of the fort in an ad hoc manner?
The Dockers Fields Anecdotally, I've seen these fields described as Siley Weirs Sports Ground, but I've not been able to confirm that they were called that. I can remember these field from the late 1960's when Sexton Road was just being completed, from my recollection, the areas coloured red in the map below around about 1969 were all field prior to the Adelaide Road estate being built and completed by 1974. I recall the football fields, rough areas of grass, disused allotments and a large area of occupied allotments where my Dad had a plot. The area was marshy in places with ditches criss-crossing it, where we'd go ditch-jumping.
The East Tilbury Cricket ground____________
A totally new discovery! I'd always guessed there must have been a cricket ground in East Tilbury. Again, all the people I've asked previously had no knowledge of one, but with the history of Bata and the ethos of the company e.g. providing facilities for its staff including sports, there just had to be a cricket ground...
The ground is seen clearly in this shot above and zoomed in below.
Below a juxtaposition of the 1955 ariel view and the 2023 view.
This then begs the question - who played on the ground and was there a Bata Cricket team or an East Tilbury team? I've messaged a couple of History groups related to Bata to see if they can come up with anything 20/10/24.
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/record/raf_58_1779_f22_0342
I'd also like to see old footage of Linford and the green just north of the Railway crossing.
n the last couple of days I've found some really useful resources - ariel photography. From what I've gleaned if you include St Chads schools wicket, Tilbury had potentially 4 strips/wickets...
To be continued...
Dockers field wicket - This shot linked below looks pretty convincing to me. In the bottom left-hand corner you can see what looks like either an artificial strip (wicket) which is almost certainly not the case, more like, it's been cut and with the heat/dry weather, it's dried out in comparison with the surrounding grass? The date though is quite early 16/4/1954.
The unfortunate thing is with these images, you'd have to have been born in 1938 and be kind of 16 years old to potentially be aware of this field and the fact that it's used for cricket which would make you 86, the chances of you being alive are slim and whether you'd be interested in cricket more so, so it's unlikely I'm ever going to get confirmation of these investigation by anyone alive.
If you know Tilbury, the track at the top of the image is roughly where Adelaide Road is these days and it would sweep down towards the buildings on the R/H side joining Dunlop Rd in the corner of the picture.
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/record/EAW053607
This shot here below (click on the image to find the origin) shows 3 of the 4 potential cricket pitches in Tilbury around the start of the 1950's if your not counting the West Tilbury wicket at Condovers.
Link here with three wickets in one shot... Daisy Field, Dockers field and St Chads
Bibliography
Details about a greyhound track (Area pre go-cart track)? https://worldgroundhop.blogspot.com/2020/05/tilbury.html
Fondu Cricket club https://www.thurrock-history.org.uk/fondu2.htm
Ariel shot RAF 1955 - Dockers field, St Chads and Daisy field wickets.
Link to Storymaps version https://storymaps.com/stories/a09fdde5b6d6411796c49a15a4545f4d/edit
