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The History Books, Our Online Museum
Everything you’ve read below is just the summary. The full story, all 163 years of it, lives in The History Books, our online museum celebrating over 160 years of proud Lowerhouse heritage.
It’s a growing archive built not just by passionate volunteers who uncover and compile stories, but by supporters, members, and former players who have shared treasured memories and long-forgotten gems from their attics. So far, we’ve published 684 articles contributed by 60 different people, and we’re just getting started.
Inside you’ll find AGM booklets from 1869, match programmes from the 1940s, squad photos from every decade, personal essays from players and fans, records of every professional the club has ever signed, accounts of the wars, the bazaars, the near-misses, and the glorious days when the cups finally came home.
Do you have a piece of Lowerhouse history to share? A photo, programme, scorebook, or story? We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line at adam@lowerhousecc.com.
Est. 1862 · Lowerhouse, Burnley
163 Years at the West End
The story of Lowerhouse Cricket Club, from a cotton mill recreation ground to one of Lancashire’s most celebrated clubs.
“A club built from community, tested by war, and ultimately triumphant, cricket’s greatest local story.”
1862 – 1890: Founded in a Cotton Mill Field
Lowerhouse Cricket Club was born in Queen Victoria’s Silver Jubilee Year of 1862, though cricket had been played in the village for some time before that. Two local teams, the Habergham Garibaldians and Britannia, merged that summer to form the present club. In August 1862, players went cap in hand to their boss at John Dugdale and Brothers Cotton Mill to request use of one of his fields. Cricket being considered a most respectable pastime, the ground was granted, and a 163-year story began.
The Dugdale family, who owned the large cotton mill in the village, would remain involved in the club right up to 1992, despite having long since moved to Gloucestershire. Their patronage gave the new club stability in its earliest, most precarious years.
Those early decades were characterised as much by fundraising as by cricket. From 1873 to 1905, Lowerhouse hosted annual Athletics Festivals that drew thousands of spectators and competitors from across Lancashire and Yorkshire. In an era before gate receipts could sustain a club, these Victorian sporting galas were frequently the difference between survival and closure, particularly during the turbulent cotton strikes of 1878, when the club teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.
“In August 1872, Sergeant Thomas Thornber of the Coldstream Guards gave a gymnastics display ‘before assembled hundreds’, an early sign that Lowerhouse was already a gathering point for the whole community.” — Anne Cochrane, Club Historian
The earliest known photo of cricket being played at Lowerhouse dates to 1898, but the earliest surviving team photo is from 1872, 144 years before it was rediscovered and shared with supporters. The club’s AGM booklets, some dating back to 1869, have been painstakingly preserved and digitised, offering a remarkable window into Victorian club life.
1892 – 1920: Founder Members of the Lancashire League
In 1892, Lowerhouse became one of the founding members of the Lancashire League, a competition that would define the club for the next 130 years. The early League era produced some of the club’s most celebrated cricketers. Chief among them was Tommy Shutt, a bowler of exceptional quality who played from 1893 to 1925. In 1921, Billy Cook claimed an astonishing 130 wickets in a single season, a club record that will never be broken in the modern game.
The period 1906–1911 represented the club’s best sustained run in its first century, with six consecutive top-half finishes. In 1910, the club were joint runners-up in the League, a position they would not approach again for decades.
The club held its first Grand Bazaar in April 1914 to clear its debts. Three days of community spirit raised vital funds, but the event was overshadowed by the horror that followed. Within months, the Great War had begun, and club life was transformed.
Lowerhouse in World War I: Out of a membership of around 400, some 80 men served in uniform. The club’s AGM reports offer a deeply moving account of the losses sustained. William “Billy” Whittaker, described as one of the finest amateurs the club had known, was killed in France in 1918, a double Hall of Fame player taken far too soon.
1920 – 1945: Between the Wars, Struggle and Spirit
The inter-war years brought financial hardship but never a loss of community spirit. The club held further Grand Bazaars in 1925 and 1934 to stave off debt. In 1933, a proposal to rename the club “Burnley West End” was swiftly shot down at a stormy AGM, with “Nor any other!” called from the floor. The identity of Lowerhouse would not be surrendered.
In 1933 the club also briefly had a Ladies Cricket Team, a remarkable and largely forgotten chapter later recovered through the archive work of club historian Anne Cochrane. Despite limited trophies, Claude Carter, the South African Test spinner, became Lowerhouse’s first international Test player in 1925.
In August 1945, Lowerhouse and Burnley played a special post-war charity match to celebrate VE Day and raise funds for the Mayor’s Ex-Servicemen’s Victory Fund. The Chairman later called it “a Red Letter Day in Lowerhouse CC History.” By 1949, a record gate of £253, some 5,000 paying spectators, watched the Lowerhouse vs Burnley derby. That crowd figure, for a local league match, is extraordinary by any measure.
1946 – 1979: The Long Wait, World-Class Professionals, No Silverware
The post-war era brought world-class professionals to Liverpool Road. Manny Martindale of the West Indies graced the ground from 1947 to 1950. Basil Butcher arrived in 1962, scoring over 1,000 runs. Roy Gilchrist took all 10 wickets in a single Lancashire League innings against Ramsbottom in 1964, still a club record. In 1976, Colin Milburn brought his one-eyed genius to the West End, entertaining crowds even as the club won little of substance.
Notable professionals of this era included: E.A. Martindale (West Indies, 1947–50), Roy Marshall (West Indies, 1951–52), Basil Butcher (West Indies, 1962), Roy Gilchrist (West Indies, 1964), Colin Milburn (England, 1976), and Mohinder Amarnath (India, 1978–81).
The darkest hour came in 1975, when the club finished bottom of the Lancashire League, 18 points adrift. It would have been easy to wallow. Instead, the club slowly rebuilt, place by place, season by season. By 1979 the club had climbed to ninth, and a new generation of home-grown talent, led by Alan Holden, Jez Hope, Stan Heaton, Roger Bromley, and Brian Higgin, were beginning to make their mark.
1980 – 1999: So Close, Yet So Far, Near-Misses of the 80s & 90s
The 1980 season brought the club’s first taste of a major final. Lowerhouse reached the Martini Trophy final (the Worsley Cup under sponsorship) and won the Express Cup the same year, the club’s first senior trophy of any kind. Then came 1982. Professional Evan Gray had started his debut game with a hat-trick against Haslingden. The whole club was electric. But Rawtenstall pipped them to the League title by a single point. The Holland Cup, awarded to the runners-up, was scant consolation, but it was the first significant honour to arrive at the West End in over a century.
The 1990 season saw Chris “Blez” Bleazard set a new amateur batting record of 857 runs in a season. Bleazard, who made his debut in 1983 and would go on to accumulate over 16,000 Lancashire League runs, is widely regarded as the most important Lowerhouse amateur of his generation, perhaps second only to Tommy Shutt in the club’s entire history.
In 1997 the club came within five points of the title. In 2002, professional Jacques Rudolph, who would go on to play Test cricket for South Africa, produced what remains the greatest batting month in Lancashire League history: 770 runs across seven innings, including five consecutive centuries, at an average of 192.5.
“In July 2002, Jacques Rudolph scored 770 runs across seven innings, including five consecutive centuries, at an average of 192.5. It is the greatest single-month batting performance in Lancashire League history.” — Paul Hargreaves, Club Historian
2000 – 2012: The Trophy Cabinet Opens, An Era of Glory
For 142 years, Lowerhouse had never won the Worsley Cup. On 5th August 2004, that changed. In front of a record gate of £4,951.50, the largest in modern Lancashire League history at the time, Chris Bleazard hit 101 not out in the final against Haslingden. He was carried off on his teammates’ shoulders. The drought was over.
Twelve months later, in 2005, they won the Lancashire League title for the very first time. Not a single club had tipped them as possible champions in pre-season previews. Captain Matt Hope led the side to Rawtenstall on the final day, where the title was clinched in scenes of raw, emotional jubilation. That same summer also saw the very first Lancashire League T20 competition, and Lowerhouse featured prominently, their squad that year including Andrew McDonald, the Australian all-rounder who would go on to play Test cricket for Australia and later become head coach of the Australian national side and coach of the Melbourne Renegades in the BBL.
The professional who perhaps did most to shape the culture of winning at Lowerhouse during this era was Ryan Harris. The Australian fast bowler, who went on to become one of the most feared Test match bowlers of his generation, a key figure in Australia’s 2013–14 Ashes whitewash, served as Lowerhouse professional and made a defining impact on and off the field. In 2007, opening the batting alongside Jon Finch against Rawtenstall, Harris blasted 144 while Finch compiled 123. Together they put on a staggering 257 for the first wicket, a stand that remains Lowerhouse’s highest-ever opening partnership and helped set up a 160-run victory. Harris returned to Liverpool Road in 2015, long after his international career had ended, to officially open the club’s brand-new changing rooms, a mark of the affection he retains for the West End.
The club went on to win the League again in 2011 and complete a double in 2012, the club’s 150th birthday year. It is a measure of the remarkable talent that passed through during this golden era that both Ryan Harris and Andrew McDonald, professionals at Lowerhouse before their international careers truly took off, went on to reach the very top of the global game.
The Club’s Major Honours
- Worsley Cup: 5 wins — 2004, 2012, 2018, 2021, 2024
- Lancashire League / Premier League: 5 titles — 2005, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2025
- Lancashire League T20: 1 title — 2013
- Holland Cup: 3 wins — 1982, 2013, 2018
- Founded: 1862 — 163 years of cricket
2013 – Present: Records, Growth, and Champions Again
The club won the Worsley Cup again in 2018 in front of a record gate of £6,469, the first-ever all-Burnley derby Worsley Cup Final. The 2021 Worsley Cup followed in dramatic fashion at Clitheroe, and the 2024 final broke the gate record once more at £6,593.
In 2017, captain Ben Heap set two club batting records in a single season, the first ever Lowerhouse Twenty20 century, and a magnificent 175 runs off 148 balls, surpassing Tommy Shutt’s record from 1905. That record fell in 2024 when Jonny Whitehead smashed an incredible 189 off 128 balls, also breaking the all-time Lancashire League amateur record.
Off the field, Liberty Heap represented England Women Under-19s at the 2023 ICC World Cup final, then signed a professional contract with Lancashire Thunder. Former professional Matthew Mott, who played for Lowerhouse in 1998, became England’s Head Coach for white-ball cricket. In 2025, Lowerhouse were crowned Lancashire Premier League Champions once again, with professional Francois Haasbroek’s match-defining 87 under pressure the centrepiece of a tense, hard-fought title-clinching victory.
A major planning application has been approved for a landmark ground redevelopment, including new function space, improved changing facilities, and a community kitchen, backed by the Youth Investment Fund. The future has never looked brighter.
The History Books archive, lovingly curated by Anne Cochrane & Adam Hope, with notable contributions from Paul Hargreaves and many others, now runs to over 680 posts: AGM booklets from 1869, match programmes from the 1940s, photos from 1872, and personal memories stretching across 163 years. It is one of the most comprehensive club history archives in English amateur cricket.