Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Hornsey Cricket Club smoking concert 1884
There was a Hornsey Cricket Club in existence as early as the beginning of the 1840s. However, the popular club known as the Hornsey Cricket club through the last decades of the nineteenth century was a club that had formerly been known as the Phoenix Cricket Club based in Tufnell Park. They moved in the summer of 1871 to a ground, described in the Islington Gazette as being "opposite the Maynard Arms" - probably the one shown on the right of this photo in what became know as Crouch End Playing Fields.
The notice above and the advert below suggest how the club was the preserve of the wealthy middle class who had recently swarmed into Crouch End.
Advertisement from, Cricket , 26 February 1885
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Comment by Richard Woods on August 23, 2024 at 7:53
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Does anyone actually know what a 'Smoking Concert' might have been?
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Comment by S Williams on August 23, 2024 at 10:42
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Hi Hugh what a find. I was in the committee of Hornsey Cricket and Tennis club for a number of years and involved in planning the new pavilion after the last one was burnt down. I’m sure colleagues would love to see this so I’ll share. We used to have difficult discussions with the neighbours when we were planning the rebuild because they wanted their gardens to back onto parkland not a cricket ground and would falsely claim they would be returning it to nature when it had been a cricket ground far longer than they had lived there!
A “smoker” was simply a concert where gentlemen could smoke. I remember one of the Middlesex Hospital doctors…. Still used by Cambridge University I think… at least until recently.
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Ah! Thank you - I had imagined some bizarre event at which people tried to smoke as many cigarettes in given period as they could!
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