The Cricketers Arms And The Town Hall

A Memory of Mitcham.

I always remember the Cricket Green as the lazy hazy days of summer.  My father played cricket here, I don't remember the name of his team, but we had to sit and watch him.  I liked it when the crocuses poked their heads out of the ground at the beginning of the season.  They would appear in glorious colour in all the corners of the green, with the cricket pitch in the middle.  We were never allowed to play on the green.  If we wanted to run around or fly our kites on a bit of grass we went to Commonside East or Commonside West, just up the road, where there was plenty of room and no one to tell us off.
The cricket green was reputed to have been played on since the 17th century, but the first recorded match was in 1711.
Along one side of the green was the clubhouse, but we never went in there.  On the Main Road side the Town Hall sat, like a miniature Houses of Parliament.  The bus depot that was the cricket green stop was here, about a hundred yards from Leo's Ice Cream Parlour.  Just out of sight in the lower right hand side was a horse trough and drinking fountain, which we often used when we watched the cricket.  I think there was also a war memorial too.
Next to the bus stop is the Cricketers Arms, where a lot of the male spectators went when they had a break in the cricket matches.  The Town Hall next door, as I knew it, was used for a few social events for the townspeople, mainly fundraisers or rummage sales.
The Lavender Parade, with the Lavender Queen and all her attendants, stopped at the green next to the Town Hall.  After wending its way from Figgs Marsh Common,  down London Road, around the Fair Green then onto the Town Hall Green.  At the green they would have stalls like toss-the-penny, coconut shy or shove-halfpenny.  The maypole was set up and we would watch the local dance acadamies plait and unplait the many colourful ribbons hanging from the pole, whilst dancing to Old English Country Fayre Music.  We would also have the Morris Dancers doing their thing, with bells tied around their legs just under the knees.  They had long sticks that also had bells on I think, but they brandished them at each other in the dance and took turns jumping over them as well.
The Lavender Queen, apart from her attendants, also wearing lavender coloured outfits, had other flowers represented as far as I can remember.  I think it was roses, daffodils and maybe bluebells, all very pretty and colourful.  They sat on trucks and open air cars all dressed up with bunting and balloons.  Others marched in the parade as well, with some local brass bands playing tunes as they went along.
I had a Rosebud doll given to me when I was about ten.  It did not have any clothes on it so my Mum found a lady who made an outfit the same as the Lavender Ladies.  It had a crinoline type dress and hat with a huge rim of fabric on the top front of it, similar to the ones popular in the days of Charles Dickens.  After that was put on the doll I was not allowed to play with it.  It sat on the broad windowsill in my bedroom, for all to see, but not to touch.
Whether they still have the parade I do not know, maybe someone will remember, or maybe it is long gone and forgotten, like the horse trough that has probably been removed to give way to busy modern traffic.