Document Request: The Richardson Brick at The Oval
Document Description: A tale of purloining from the bosom of British cricket
Transcription URL: https://richardson.surnametree.com/library/vdocs/D_49#49
Document Transcription:The first brick
Just as unlikely as the second brick, with perhaps finer results.
The second brick
On my 61st birthday I was living in Bath and came up to London for a couple of days as our flat was untenanted. QR Languages was trying to take off and I decided to visit a few museums around Lambeth to see if I could drum up some business.
I ended up in the Garden Museum next to Lambeth Palace. It turned out to be a converted church, St Mary's Lambeth, I thought it rang a bell (nice one - Ed) and looked up on the Ada Family website, sure enough my great great great grandfather Charles Richardson married here one month short of two hundred years ago.
This coincidence caused me to switch into family tree mode for the first time in months, I remembered that my great great grandfather (William's son) had run the Brunswick Wharf part of the business and had delivered bricks for the foundation of the Oval Cricket ground, a few minutes walk from the church.
I walked there through a very run-down part of London and arrived at the Oval, got to the right gate and was told by Security that the museum was closed.
At the back of the room another Security guard started a conversation, then made a phone call, and said that the museum was open. Through that door, up the stairs, through the Long Room and you get to the museum.
So off I went, worth it just to go through the Long Room with its perfect view of the pitch. On the other side was the Library, very hot and stuffy and small, I started to look around.
There was a Librarian at his desk by the window. I was probably his first visitor in ages if Security was telling everyone to go away. I had a look round and then got into conversation with the librarian who was probably pleased for the company.
I told him about Richardson bricks making the foundations of the Oval pitch, he said that could not be as the base of the Oval cricket ground is gravel dug out of the river Effra which passed by one side of the grounds. We worked out from the dates that they must have been providing the foundations for the pavilion in which we were standing. The librarian said that it was possible to see the foundations as the undercroft had been exposed a few years ago underneath the stand. Having spent a fair amount of time in the library not finding any evidence of Richardson involvement, the librarian suggested a trip to the undercroft and cleared this with Security. Off we went, with a guided tour of the cricket greats in the Long Room and the new collection of blazers, down into the undercroft.
So there we were in the dusty basement full if discarded carpet and water bottles, the librarian showed me the foundations, I took some photographs, it had been worth the journey.
Then the unexpected, he asked me if I wanted to take a brick. he started looking around and saw there was a crack at the base of one of the columns, gave me a metal bar he had found. I tried to work loose a half brick and it came out together with a full brick, covered in mortar so we could not identify it.
A couple of ladies suddenly appeared in the undercroft looking at the stores. He suggested that I find a bag or something, and looking around I found a bag full of rubbish and emptied it out. It was just big enough to hold a brick, on the outside it said OUT OF THE ASHES TOGETHER WE WILL SUCCEED so even the bag was special. I thanked the librarian effusively, smuggled my brick past security and took a celebratory photo outside.
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