Two hundred and sixty-five seasons on the same ground in the shadow of Leeds Castle. A top 20 club in Kent that is a ‘village at heart’ fielding five senior sides and ten junior teams. We are raising a new pavilion to carry it into the next century.
The New Pavilion Project
The present pavilion went up after fire destroyed its predecessor, built for a club less than half the size of today’s. It now serves more than 250 members, 150 children across ten junior teams and five senior sides — with no accessible entrance, no changing facilities suitable for mixed-gender or girls’ cricket, and nowhere for the village to gather out of season.
Figures from the club’s Strategic CIL bid to Maidstone Borough Council. All figures exclude VAT.
The balance is being raised by the club and its supporters through the lottery, sponsorship and events. The club is applying for charitable status and will reclaim VAT on construction. Costs have been scrutinised by a chartered surveyor and benchmarked against published BCIS tender data.
Show Your Support
Maidstone Borough Council is weighing our bid for £800,000 of Strategic CIL funding. Demonstrable community backing is part of how these bids are scored — and your postcode is what shows the Council this project serves the people its own Local Plan is building homes for.
Supporting the Leeds & Broomfield CC Community Pavilion Project.
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Our History
Leeds & Broomfield is among the oldest cricket clubs in England, and for a village side it has had an outsized hand in the game — including the delivery style that changed how cricket is bowled. What follows is the club’s story in full.
The club dates its inception to 1761. The first reported fixture was a two-day match against Chatham, which Leeds won. Cricket then was played for money: stakes ran from five shillings to five guineas a man, and in 1785 a match against Sittingbourne was advertised for a purse of 200 guineas — a small fortune.
The original ground lay down by the lake in the Castle grounds. Its outline is still visible today.
John Willes of Sutton Valence first appears in the club’s records in 1806. He is commonly credited with pioneering round-arm bowling — the delivery that broke cricket’s underarm convention and set the game on the road to the modern action. He went on playing for Leeds until 1830.
In 1829, aged 22, Alfred Mynn made his debut. He became the most celebrated cricketer in England, the “Lion of Kent”, a fearsome fast bowler and a punishing bat for the All England XI. His brother Walter played too, as did the Wenman brothers of Benenden.
Under the patronage of Charles Wykeham Martin, owner of Leeds Castle, the club reached its height. In 1834 and 1835 it beat both the MCC and Surrey — the Clarence Club — more than once, and The Sporting Magazine rated the side “probably superior to any other society”. The ascendancy did not last: Town Malling soon rose to eclipse it.
Family names that appear in the club’s books in these years — Edmed, Russell, Fermor, Charlton, Bristow, Wood, Cheeseman and Fridd — have recurred in its teamsheets ever since.
W.C. Betts was recruited from Lenham in 1902 and proceeded to dominate: figures of 8–28 and 14–19 in 1903, 15 wickets against Ashford in 1906, and a 1906 season of 70 wickets in 142 overs at an average of 6.7, with a top score of 114. J.J. Ellis, from Bearsted, once took 10–35 against Gore Court.
The scorebooks of the period make remarkable reading. In 1902 Leeds made 293–3 and bowled Sutton Valence out for 10 — a margin of 283 runs. Against Mr Pemberton’s XI the club posted 435.
In 1911 Leeds beat the Kent County Constabulary by an innings, a match in which P.F. “Plum” Warner scored 126. Warner, who lived at Caring Lane in the village, captained England on the 1903–04 Ashes tour, managed the 1932–33 Bodyline tour and became President of the MCC in 1950. F.L. Fane — the Essex player who captained England five times — also turned out for the club in that match.
After the First World War the two village sides came together, and in 1920 the club carried the name Leeds and Broomfield for the first time. A 2nd XI appeared in the same year. George Wratten, an all-rounder, played on until 1952. John Butcher, headmaster of the village school, played through the twenties and thirties and held most of the club’s offices along the way.
Around 1947, Lady Baillie moved the club to its present ground at a peppercorn rent of sixpence a year. The old pitch by the lake was absorbed into the golf course. Photographs from the 1920s show a horse-drawn roller at work on that original square.
The pavilion was shifted to the south-west corner of the ground around 1962 — a building with neither showers nor toilets. It was replaced in 1984 by a proper clubhouse with both, the ground widened five yards to the west at the same time, and the new building named the John Butcher pavilion. In the winter of 1998/99 it burned down. The club was underinsured by £15,000, and the Castle rebuilt it at their own expense — the building that still stands today.
These were the club’s record-breaking decades. Dave Wratten, George’s son, completed fifty years of playing, scoring more than 20,000 runs and taking over 1,000 wickets for the 1st XI, often opening with John Dunk. Dink Fermor took 103 wickets in 1970. Bill Cummings made 2,065 runs at 64.5 in 1972 — the only time anyone has passed 2,000 in a season for the club — with a top score of 201 not out, and more than 6,000 runs at over 50 across 1970–74. Mike Sharrett, a swing bowler who played Minor Counties cricket for Staffordshire, took 113 wickets at 7.1 in 1973.
Then came the next generation. Andy Creamer first played in 1971 while still at school in Maidstone and went on to more than 20,000 runs, including 1,916 in 1984. Brian Fridd took 108 wickets in 1982. Adrian “Sam” Samson arrived from the Mote at fifteen and finished with over 1,000 wickets and 10,000 runs, his 116 wickets in 1990 still a club record. John Hartshorn, also from the Mote, passed 20,000 runs. Ron Law umpired, recruited and eventually became Club President; with Alan Ault he ran the club’s East Anglia tours from 1973 to 1999.
The club joined the Mid Kent League in 1974, the 2nd XI winning Division 2 in 1990 under Alan Vidgen, before moving to the Invicta League in the late nineties.
And then there is 1978. A midweek friendly against The Enzymes was blocked by armed police and troops, because Arab–Israeli peace talks were under way at the Castle. John Dunk found himself shadowed by a helicopter gunship. The American Embassy later paid the club £50 in compensation.
In 2003 the club merged with Harrietsham CC, whose junior section had started in 1999, and LBH — Leeds, Broomfield and Harrietsham — was born. That same summer the Under-13s won the Weald of Kent Cup on the Leeds ground. A junior Flicx pitch followed in 2005, the year the club became only the second in Kent to earn ClubMark accreditation and gained Focus Club status.
A second ground at Tower House was taken on in 2008, thanks to Tony Cotton and Dave Wratten, giving the 3rd XI and the juniors somewhere to play. A ladies’ section formed in 2009 and competed in the Women’s Southern Cricket League. The Castle gifted adjoining land in 2006 and 2011, enlarging the ground without raising the rent, and a £20,000 synthetic net facility with two all-weather pitches opened in 2011 with the Sports Minister present — the end of a £65,000 campaign led by chairman John Fletcher.
On the field the club climbed fast. 2009: top of Invicta Division 2 under James Ingarfield. 2010: winners of the Kent Regional Village League, 15 of 18 matches won, promoted to Championship East. 2011: Championship East won and promotion to the Premier Division — the season Martin McCague, who took four wickets on his England Test debut in 1993, made 234 not out against Wye with 14 sixes and 29 fours, passing Bill Cummings’ 201.
Rick Parsons was appointed Director of Cricket in 2021, the year the 1st XI won promotion to Division 2 of the Kent League and the 2nd XI enjoyed a strong season under Dom O’Connell. In 2022, at 34, Chris Davis became the youngest chair in the club’s history. In 2023 the 1st XI finished top of Division 1.
The side has been captained through this era by James Longhurst, Chris Davis and Max Aitken — a batsman and leg-spinner who passed 10,000 runs for the club in 2021. Alongside them: George Davis, Ed Scrivens, James Mitchinson, Tom Parsons, Phil Semmens and Neil Dibben, with overseas professionals Michael Ho in 2022 and Ryan Tullia in 2023.
Off the field the club has grown faster still: more than 250 members, five senior sides, and ten junior teams including three girls’ sides — over 150 children coached here every season. It is a top-20 club in Kent that remains, in every way that counts, a village at heart. The one thing that has not kept pace is the building.
Play & Support
Everything on the playing side lives on Play-Cricket. If you would rather back the pavilion with more than a signature, the club lottery is the simplest way to do it — and you might win.
Teams, fixtures, results, league tables, averages and match reports for all five senior sides and the junior section.
Open Play-Cricket → Club LotteryA weekly draw where the club keeps the lion’s share of every ticket. It goes straight into the £42,973 the club needs to raise itself in 2026 towards the new pavilion.
Join the lottery →
Contact Us
Whether you want to play, volunteer, hire the ground, sponsor the build or ask a question about the pavilion project, one of these four will be able to help.
Businesses backing the pavilion project can be recognised in the new building and across the club’s matchday materials. Speak to the chairman about what is available.