Kew Green

Kew Green
The cricket pavilion on Kew Green
Type	Village green
Location	London
Area	30 acres
Operated by	London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Status	Open all year

Kew Green is a large open space in Kew in west London. Owned by the Crown Estate, it is leased to the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It is roughly triangular in shape, and its open grassland, framed with broadleaf trees, extends to about thirty acres. Kew Green is overlooked by a mixture of period townhouses, historic buildings and commercial establishments. In the 1730s, Kew Green was a venue for first-class cricket matches.

Most of the older houses in Kew are built round the Green and along the eastern side of the Kew Road looking towards Kew Gardens. The Green itself is a big triangular space. It is mentioned in a Parliamentary Survey of Richmond taken in 1649, and is there described as 'a piece of common or uninclosed ground called Kew Green, lying within the Township of Kew, conteyning about 20 acres.' An 18th-century view, taken from a meadow to the east, shows Kew Bridge on the right, a small irregular lake with an island to the left. A road led to the western point of the Green, where the palace was visible, a windmill behind it; and trees, the trunks engirdled by seats, grew opposite the square-built church which stood isolated on the Green. Some land at the end of the Green was enclosed by George IV, and a meadow east of the bridge was made common land, as part of a design, never carried out, of building a new palace at Kew in place of the Dutch House. In the early 19th century Sir Richard Phillips described the Green as 'a triangular area of about 30 acres bounded by dwelling-houses,' and another description of a slightly later date speaks of the 'well-built houses and noble trees' surrounding it.

Kew Green was a venue for first-class cricket in the 1730s. It was used for the second in a tri-series of single wicket matches on Thursday, 4 June 1730 when a Kent team led by Edwin Stead played Brentford for a £50 stake. On Thursday, 27 July, the Whitehall Evening Post reported a "great cricket match" attended by the Prince of Wales. On Monday, 4 September 1732 it was the venue for London versus Middlesex. There are no records of senior matches there after 1732 but Kew Green is still used for junior cricket today as the home of Kew Cricket Club.