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