Our former club pavilion, ‘built’ in 1951 being a former missen hut from Willingale airfield, was purchased from the ‘ HR Department of Disposals’ formed shortly after WW2, had served us well for over fifty years but its life expectancy was questionable, fixing this, fixing that it was resembling The Severn Bridge with constant patch-ups but we soldiered on expecting to stay there for many more decades.

Then out of the blue, the cricket club received an inheritance from our recently passed President, Vince Dunn. He gave instructions from his Will to give us around £100,000 to ‘repair and make good the cricket club pavilion’. A windful so unexpected but gratefully received.

Whilst deciding which part of the club house deserved most attention and that was a long list, it suggested by one of our committee, Paul Baxter why not invest the monies in a new build. We thought Vince’s legacy would be worth around 20% of a new build cost. With some chasing around for various grants we could well build a new home for our club and in a better location between the two cricket grounds we used (Marigolds and Spicers field) plus the opportunity to build a badly needed car park as well.

So, with careful research, Christine Baxtrer found several grant opportunities that could well cover our first estimated cost.

So we now need an architect to design and find out the planning route to follow and also a design suitable for the needs for four teams, large club room along with various other facilities that would be required to satisfy both the planning department up at the Town Hall and the England Cricket Board (ECB) who would possibly assist, which they generously did but placed many stipulations in front of our recently elected sub-committee team made up with Paul, Chairman Simon Radbourne and President, Alan Howick.

A local award-winning architect was instructed with our brief which was wide and varied choices, from classic English cricket club pavilions to almost akin to a shoe box. A design compromise was challenging discussion work but in the end a mixture of classic & modern with a barn like appearance (because of the farmland nearby!) was agreed.

Now the planners were our next step forward. Schemes and drawings bounced forward and backwards for what seemed an age, a year or so. Vehicle access, car parking spaces but the first obstacle being the matter of a long hedgerow between both cricket ground would have to be removed as well as rerouting a public footpath.

Time taken for meetings, mostly managed by Paul were frequent. We were fortunate that Paul had the time available plus a professional knowledge of the building industry, goodness knows how many meetings and hours were spent and we still did not really know how much it would cost to both build and fees.

Christine Baxter proved to be the find of the HCC century with her ability to chase down countless grant opportunities which turned out, just as well as our modest thought of around half a million trebled!

Now we move on to phase two, the planning application. That caused sleepless nights for us, local politics, dislikes from our neighbours, moving this, changing that more toilets required, vaulted lounge roof or flat ceiling. The list seemed endless. Eventually the appearance, floor plan and exact location where to build is sorted, well sort of.

Now we must ‘meet the neighbours’ session. We send out an open invite to the residents of Chippingfield to come in, have a look at the final plans and Q&A sessions. Time date and day agreed, autumn, Saturday afternoon between two and four o’clock. Bar open, kettle on, all welcome. A ‘friendly’ neighbour warned us of a local argumentative person living close by being a former solicitor (why former we never found out but a few suggestions were passed to us). We knew of him via countless ‘letters to the Editor’ in the local newspaper The Star, who were supportive of our project.

Well, Mr X appeared at 3.45, notebook in hand with a list of negative questions and alternative proposals.” Why do you need such a big building” also “what is wrong with what you got” then ‘why move it over there’ and many more critical observations. After about half an hour of his rantings, one of our sub-committee members turned on him and said ‘OK if we abandon this project then we have agreed with the Trustees to move our cricketing home across towards the new Newhall project where we have access to ten acres for an out of town cricket facility and Marigolds can then be covered in concrete and build houses!’ He went noticeably quiet for a brief moment’ well, let’s have another look at your plan’.

We never heard from him again. Did we have an alternative plan and location? Leave the reader to guess!

Now, its tender time and find a suitable building contractors to quote. This we did, a father and son specialist from the Kent/Sussex borders. They knew their job. The biggest achievement is being probably, their appointment.

Their first question, why build in concrete blocks, why not timber frame and save a fortune. Their price guide was well under the estimated million plus to under the million. So back to the specification and drop the planners request of a water recycling reservoir below the build. It worked out the cost of this subterranean fantasy would take well over twenty years to pay back, with luck. Crazy and pleased to say suitably dropped off the planning requirements. That contributed to a substantial saving off the build cost.

In the meantime, Christine Baxter is having considerable success with her grant aid projects and achieving over 50% of the build cost with Sport England and the National Lottery, that along with Vince donation almost covered the revised budgeting, well almost then again there never is a firm figure in the building trade. Paul was searching costs savings and Christine ever increasing her additional grant application options with considerable success.

So, all agreed, contractors appointed, planning finally granted, funds in place, happy days.
Now the actual build commences in the spring of 2016. Paul might have well pitched camp at Marigolds for the time he spent. There quickly emerged a ‘love hate’ relationship with the builders but Paul was thick skinned enough to keep on top of situation and gradually from holes in the ground there emerged the skeleton of our new home, it is actually happening after what must have been five years or so from the fledgling of an idea, Vince tremendous generosity and vigilance of Paul along with his wife Christine’s treasure hunting for grants from all over the place, too many to list but a lengthy one.

The build time finished ready for the start of the 2017 summer. But sadly, for some members, our old home was bulldozed to the ground and cleared out so well, for those joining us from 2018 onwards would never have known of its existence. Now a pretty remembrance triangle of a garden aptly named ‘Pamela’s Garden’ after a great friend and loyal servant of our club for over four decades. Her son made sure Pam’s ashes were laid to rest approximately where the old kitchen used to be! He said, ‘Mum would have loved that!’

Those of us who remember Pam would not necessarily agree.

Even now with a little bit of poetic license you may be able to feel the voices of distant past members of the 1950’s and 60’s and wonder what they would have thought of our new home. Impressed we would have hoped but there is still a few of us around who remember with fondness our former home and a picture is mounted within Pamela’s Garden to remind us all.

So many friends and members inputted considerable time and effort to build our new home, so many names to recall and thank and in particular, Paul and Christine Baxter were outstanding performers for our club, and they have the clubs deepest thanks for their input and tenacity in getting the job done.

Our new home, opened in 2017, is the third here at Marigolds since it first became a cricket ground in the early 1880’s and with good fortune, the original is still here looking over to its grandchild!