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41 JOIN OUR MAILING LIST FOR ALL THE LATEST: TRENTBRIDGE.CO.UK/MAILINGLIST HERITAGE W hilst the current Pavilion building is unquestionably the one built almost 140 years ago, it has undergone so many changes, additions and alter- ations that a late Victorian cricketer transported to the 21st century might not immediately recognise the grand old place. And a time traveller from even earlier in the 19th century might be surprised that the Pavilion they knew had been supplanted, for this is the third Pavilion on the ground – the previous two each having lasted barely a dozen years. The ‘Father of Trent Bridge’William Clarke set out the ground and laid the foundations for the county club – but he and his teams did not, as far as we can establish, use a Pavilion. It was not until 1860 that Trent Bridge got its first purpose-built Pavilion.That building stood at the back of the TBI (roughly where the courtyard is now) facing the playing area. It was not, even by the standards of that era, a particularly palatial building and intended, as Lynn Pearson says in her new book ‘Cricket Pavilions’, for storage rather than spectating.The much later photographs that we now have show a seven-bay, single storey building, brick-built and unadorned, that appears to have been converted into a row of sheds or garages. A sketch of a match in 1862 shows the Pavilion ‘in play’ and the building forms the background to the (fairly rare) team photos of the 1860s. The new building did not have the most auspicious start – the visitors Surrey winning by 30 runs in a match chiefly notable for the debut of the only MP yet to play for Nottinghamshire, Lord George Stanhope. John Johnson, a man whose playing career was brief and unremarkable, was one of the most important administra- tors in the history of the club and it was he that campaigned for, and oversaw, this first Trent Bridge Pavilion. For all the campaigning Johnson did, his building only served its original purpose for thirteen years. It remained in use until 1935 when it was demol- ished to make way for the re-modelling of the TBI – but as a Pavilion, its days were short. The minute books of 1872 show an agreement to replace the Pavilion next to the TBI with a bigger, better and more stylish structure on the Hound Road side of the ground – where a Pavilion has stood ever since. A proposal to take £400 from club funds and raise the rest from sub- scriptions was agreed in January 1872 and prompted a rather curmudgeonly letter in the Nottingham Journal that deplored the building of ‘the holy of holies, in which the committee may sit, separating them from the common herd, to be paid for from the sixpences of the cricket-loving townsmen’. The plans went ahead, though, and local architect Samuel DuttonWalker was appointed. His plans, featured inThe Builder magazine, offered a two-storey block; on the ground floor were a dining room and kitchens with dressing rooms, committee room and balcony. Single-storey wings offered covered seating on either side of the main block. It certainly looked more like the traditional cricket Pavilion. It was, according to one contemporary report, ‘a sightly structure, the interior being exceedingly well appointed’ though the press had hoped that accommodation might have been provided for them. It was opened for the 1873 Easter Colts Trial, and in June the first county game of the new Pavilion’s life was played. Yorkshire were dismissed for just 65 in their first innings, the Shaws (Jem and Alfred) taking five wickets each (nine of them clean bowled); Richard Daft led the reply with 161, and the home side won by an innings and 120 runs. Despite the praise accorded to the 1873 edition, within a few years it was “IT WAS NOT UNTIL 1860 THAT TRENT BRIDGE GOT ITS FIRST PURPOSE-BUILT PAVILION. THAT BUILDING STOOD AT THE BACK OF THE TBI (ROUGHLY WHERE THE COURTYARD IS NOW) FACING THE PLAYING AREA.” Peter Smith