Whilst sport has been played for thousands of years, mass sporting participation is one of the consequences of industrialisation, and like the classic industries of the Industrial revolution it has left a remarkable physical legacy, from football stadia and dog racing tracks to public parks the first of which was published on Manchester ten years ago,¹ whilst other studies can be found in local and national journals. I mention this because January 2014 marks the 150^th anniversary of the founding of Lancashire County Cricket Club, the successor to Manchester CC and a club dear to my heart. Lancashire’s Old Trafford ground, like many test venues, has been completely rebuilt in the last few years, and my Centre was fortunate enough to have been commissioned in 2012 to undertake an archaeological building survey of the old pavilion before it was rebuilt.

The Pavilion is probably the most iconic of…