Although cricket may well have occurred previously, a Compton Bassett cricket team is first recorded in 1858 when the Amateur players of Compton Bassett and Cherhill played a match against Lyneham Club on Monday 2 September and won. It was a two innings game with lunch provided by the landlord of the Trooper’s Inn.
After then, cricket pops up several times in the records, with the first home match documented on 7 August 1886 and played on Reverend Vincent Ransome’s own ground behind the rectory, which had more land at that time. Ransome and three of his sons played as well as two of the Heneage family. They lost narrowly by 12 runs to Savernake Great Park Cricket Club. In August 1889 Compton Bassett entertained Spye Park in a match played in the park grounds of Compton House. The home team were captained by Major Godfrey Heneage VC, and it featured three Heneages and three Ransomes. Squire Godfrey Heneage took five wickets in the first innings and four in the second; Compton Bassett won comfortably.
Two weeks later Bernard Ransome, 27 year old son of the vicar, captained a team of his own making against a Wiltshire County XI. He took the precaution of obtaining a couple of ringers for the occasion, a Somerset bowler and a Gloucestershire all rounder, both making a big impact and consequently Ransome’s Eleven won by an innings. Charles Ransome, fifth son of Rev Vincent, was a particularly fine batsman who scored over a thousand runs that year.
Cricket was played up until the First World War but is then unrecorded for some years. In the archive we have one photo of a Compton Bassett team from the 1930s, which coincides with the arrival of the Fielding Johnsons to Manor Farm. They encouraged cricket and provided a new ground on the opposite side of the road from the manor.
After the Second World War cricket featured in the 1950s but apparently not again until the mid 1980s. It then carried on each year before the village cricket team folded in September 2019.
LAURIE WAITE
