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Sept
Recovery fund launched for uninsured Studley cricket pavilion
The Stray Ferret was first to report on the pavilion fire and has followed developments closely since. See the links at the end of this article for some of our recent Ripon news stories. Please support independent local journalism so we can report on important local issues and hold people in power to account. Subscribe here for just 14p a day.
A fundraising appeal has been launched in the aftermath of a fire that destroyed a historic cricket pavilion in Studley Royal deer park.
The Stray Ferret broke the news over the bank holiday weekend that Studley Royal Cricket Club’s pavilion, which featured in TV’s All Creatures Great and Small, had gone up in flames.
The club blames arsonists but North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said yesterday the cause was so far “undetermined”.
Now the club has launched a recovery fund appeal to raise £6,000. You can donate here.
Within hours of being set up, the appeal had already generated almost £3,000 — half of its target.
In its appeal, the club said “the building was uninsurable because it essentially started life as a shed hundreds of years ago, and therefore we have no means of recovering losses through that route”.
It added:
This iconic Nidderdale cricket venue dates back to the late 1800s, when it was originally installed as a place for estate workers to play cricket. Other than having toilets installed, and essential repairs and maintenance, the pavilion has largely remained unchanged for hundreds of years.
In the fire we not only lost an irreplaceable part of history. We lost a building, all of our ground care equipment, match day kit, stumps, markers, chairs, tables, scoreboards. Absolutely everything.
This is about more than rebuilding a clubhouse. It is about protecting a place where generations of cricketers have learned, developed and fallen in love with the game of cricket.
The road ahead for us is complex. The pavilion was located in a protected site within the Studley Royal deer park. Replacing it will not only be very costly for our community cricket club, it will be complex. We will require planning and legal support to ensure we meet all of the regulations associated with building a structure in such a unique setting.
We do not want to lose this place as our cricketing home. We are starting this page as an appeal to our local community to help us with anything you can to get this pavilion back up and running, ideally for the start of the 2027 season.
The deer park pitch
The cricket pitch was established at the UNESCO World Heritage Site by estate workers in the 1800s.
The workers later formed Studley Royal Cricket Club, which used the deer park as its main ground until its current Galphay Road site was built in the 1990s.
The club's third and fourth teams, along with its junior side, still use the deer park ground. Three remaining deer park fixtures this season have been relocated following the fire.
The pavilion is owned by the club, which rents the land for the cricket pitch off the National Trust.
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