North Yorkshire Moors Moorland Organisation Repair And Reopen Village Cricket Club

In Gillamoor, a small village in the North York Moors, there has been no cricket team for the last 5 years.

In that time, the cricket field and play area had become overgrown, untidy and unloved; a sad sight for a village which used to have a thriving cricket team.

Having seen what was going on, a team of local game keepers decided to spend a few evenings each week through the summer to try and revitalise the area.

By cutting back, strimming, litter picking and generally tidying up the area, the cricket field is now playable, and the play area has become somewhere for children to easily access and enjoy.


Local keeper Sam Farrow, who instigated the clean-up, explained why he got involved:

"Living near to Gillamoor, I drove past the cricket club every day, and as a keen cricketer myself, I thought it was a huge shame to see it going to waste. As keepers, we had equipment available to us to fix up the the field to its former glory, so we thought we should give it a go, and see if we could improve it in our spare time. It's fantastic to see cricket being played in Gillamoor again, and to see local kids able to enjoy the play area."

Local resident Adam Durrant agrees:

"I'm a keen cricketer and part of the Gillamoor team before, so I was very sorry to see the Gillamoor cricket team disappear and the field to become so run down. We are all so grateful to the keepers and lads who spent their evenings working to make the field playable again and we can't wait to get back out on the cricket circuit, representing our village. Everyone in the village has been so excited to get playing again, we can't thank the keepers enough."

Over the last couple of Sundays, the club has been holding some friendly “all welcome” cricket games. Next year, they hope to enter a team into the local Feversham cricket league, which has been described as “one of Yorkshire’s most remote competitions.”