A Pitch with no Square? : Grindleford

A day trip to Grindleford in Derbyshire on Saturday. 

It has a railway station (a stop on the pretty Hope Valley Line that runs from Sheffield to Manchester, it emerges suddenly after the lengthy Totley Tunnel), a couple of pubs and a church that was celebrating its hundredth birthday (so only twice as old as your correspondent).  It also has an – apparently still functioning – model laundry –

  

It is close to Eyam, the village that public-spiritedly chose to isolate itself during a visitation of Plague, resulting in the deaths of a considerable proportion of its inhabitants.

I did wonder if something similar might have been going on in Grindleford.  Hardly a living soul was to be seen on the streets.  The Post Office had shut down, I’d say in the last month or so (a handwritten sign of apology attached to the door) :

–  the same with the village shop.  Another shop (I can’t remember what it sold) showed few signs of life, and nor did the Vet’s, though there was a small “art gallery” selling decorative paintings.  All par for the course, I suppose, in these straitened times.     

It does have a cricket pitch, with excellent views of the Derbyshire Dales and an impressive pavilion, built in keeping with its surroundings (and – I’m guessing – a beneficiary of lottery money) –

 The outfield was lush ; they have a shed for their equipment and a roller –

 

but the curious thing was that there didn’t seem to be a square.  Perhaps, in Derbyshire – with their fine tradition of seam bowling – they like to leave a fair amount of grass on the wicket, but surely not so much that the square is indistinguishable from the rest of the pitch? 

All very rum – though perhaps this sign attached to the front of the pavilion might have something to do with it.