Sandgate Plain was a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

ground in

Folkestone Folkestone ( ) is a port town on the English Channel, in Kent, south-east England. The town lies on the southern edge of the North Downs at a valley between two cliffs. It was an important harbour and shipping port for most of the 19th and 20t ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. The ground was situated on the Folkestone Leas, an area along the coast to the west of the town centre close to the village of Sandgate. The ground was one of two located either side of the Upper Folkestone Road, now the A259 Sandgate Road, which were established by 1859.Ordnance Survey Map of Kent, LXXV.9. Revised: 1897, Published: 1898.Explorer Map 138 – Dover, Folkestone & Hythe,

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was ...

, 2015-09-16.Crocket D (2016
Cricket on the Leas
Go Folkestone, March 2016, p.10. Retrieved 2017-12-08.Chairman's report
Newsletter No. 59, Folkestone & District Local History Society, Summer 2014. Retrieved 2017-12-08. The ground was used by Folkestone Cricket Club between 1859 and 1901.
Folkestone Cricket Club. Retrieved 2017-12-08. The ground was the venue for two

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

matches in the 1860s.

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

played

Sussex County Cricket Club Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Sussex. Its limited overs team is called the Sussex Sharks. The ...

in both matches, one in 1862 and one in 1863.Kent against Sussex, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'', issue 24314, 1862-08-02, p.14.County of Kent vs Sussex, ''

'', issue 24317, 1862-08-06, p.12.First-Class Matches played on Sandgate Plain Ground, Sandgate
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-12-08. The first match generated much interest and special trains were laid on to bring spectators to the town. Folkestone played one match on the ground against the New All England Eleven, a team of professional cricketers, in 1864 and the

United South of England Eleven The United South of England Eleven (USEE) was an itinerant cricket team founded in November 1864 by Edgar Willsher, as secretary, and John Lillywhite, as treasurer. The USEE had no home venue as its prime purpose, like all similarly named teams of ...

played challenge matches on the ground three times between 1865 and 1870.Other matches played on Sandgate Hill Ground, Sandgate
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-12-08. Folkestone Cricket Club moved to

Cheriton Road Cheriton Road is a complex of sports grounds at Folkestone in the English county of Kent. The complex includes football pitches, a cricket ground, hockey pitches, netball courts and an indoor sports facility. It includes the home ground of Fo ...

at the beginning of the 20th century and the ground there was used by Kent for over 100 First XI matches between 1926 and 1995.Grounds Records in ''Kent County Cricket Club Annual 2017'', pp.210–211. Canterbury:

.Cheriton Road Sports Ground, Folkestone
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-12-08. The area which the ground was located on is now built-up with areas of housing.Milton H (1979) Kent cricket grounds, in ''The Cricket Statistician'', no. 28, December 1979, pp.2–10. The remains of a

martello tower Martello towers, sometimes known simply as Martellos, are small defensive forts that were built across the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the French Revolutionary Wars onwards. Most were coastal forts. They stand u ...

at the top of Sandgate Hill mark the edge of the former ground.

References

{{Kent CCC Defunct cricket grounds in England Cricket grounds in Kent Defunct sports venues in Kent