Castle Grounds - 'Over the Years'

In this section

There is a long history of sports and social activities at the Castle Grounds which has boasted a number of pavilions, Nissen huts, bowling greens, archery butts and a rifle range over the years. It has also hosted football pitches and was a minor counties cricket ground until the Deddington cricket and football clubs moved to their current venues at The Windmill centre post 1986.

Pavilions 

1860 was when the first Pavilion,known as the Archery Pavilion, was constructed. It stood until 1931 before being demolished.

 

Positioned in the south west corner on the inside of the banking, the Pavilion would have been an imposing structure and clearly dwarfed the banks which are just visible.It provided a ballroom and refreshment room for a club supported by the local gentry rather than the villagers; the balls apparently attracted visitors from all over the region. The lodge at the Castle entrance was occupied by a professional who supervised a Gentlemen's Cricket Club and an Archery tournament.  

 

 

An unknown author contemporaneous with the pavilion wrote: " Here, from about the middle of the nineteenth century till the first decade of the twentieth, situated on the right hand side of the present bowling green stood the remarkable structure called the Pavilion. It was so large that it contained a spacious ballroom with musicians' gallery, cloakrooms and a refreshment room. The whole was covered by an immense roof of thatch." 

The rest of this extensive and interesting article can be read HERE (pdf) The historian, Leland, quoted at the beginning of the article is the C.16^th antiquarian historian, John Leland, who passed through Deddington and observed there had been a castle 'whose Grounds still remained'.

In the end the vogue for pavilion 'gaities' waned and finally, principally on account of the cost of keeping in repair the immense thatched roof, the pavilion was demolished. Little remained other than a part of its concrete foundation.

For many years the annual flower show, a bowling green and winter matches of Deddington football club were the remaining uses of the Grounds.

Pre-WWI

This undated postcard - likely to be from the Edwardian era - shows a match in progress with a new pavilion in the background situated on the north side of the Grounds

Rodney Hayward recollects: "When I was young and we went to watch the games, there was a green hut/building which was either on stilts or wheels [the Edwardian pavilion repainted] as we used to lay underneath it and where drinks were supplied and Bill Compton used to stand at the entrance to the Castle Grounds with a collection box so people could drop money into when we went to watch the games. He also remembers an old Deddington resident, Mrs Gilkes. She would buy six oranges every Saturday home game from my grandfather's shop and take them to the ground, cut them in half and this was the half time refreshments for our team. She was a very vocal person at the games and my father once told me she would shout and question the referees decisions  and once , when the linesman made in her opinion, some wrong decisions the next time he ran up the line passing her  she tripped him up using her umbrella which she used to carry" 

In 1967 the Football Club purchased the pavilion pictured below from Tetbury Cricket Club, seemingly unaware of the Pavilion Fund held by the Parish Council! Its internal layout is on this sketch plan. 

 

An even earlier report dated 1854 from the Rev.Cotton Risley's diaries  (courtesy Banbury History Society re-print) includes an entry about the annual Flower Show and, as an article in the September 2026 Deddington News tells,  the 1858 Horticultural Show  was particularly interesting. These continued well into the 20th century.

 

More Flower Show images from 1909 to 1932 can be found in the Gallery

Fetes & Fairs

The Castle grounds have also hosted the village Fetes and Fairs for many years.