18 thoughts on “Playing Cricket on the Wrensfield Estate”

  1. This definitely is not The Wrensfield estate. Having just visited Stockton over the weekend I drove round the estate to confirm my original comment thoughts. It must possibly be as someone else suggested be Fairfield or Portrack area. It did evoke a lot of old memories, it seems a lot smaller than I remembered. I lived on the estate for some twenty years.
    Dave.

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  2. I would say this is Wrensfield estate if you look at the flats in front then look again at the flats in between these were at the top of Dunmail Road the flats to the fore were where the police houses used to be, the little girl sitting down {blonde) looking towards the flats could be Pamala Aldridge who lived in that road!!!

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    • Hi Mick,
      I didn’t question it the first time I looked, but it nagged me that the road was so flat Thinking back to when my Nana lived in the flats at Wrensfield I remembered it being uphill from any direction.
      If you click this link from my previous comment ( https://goo.gl/maps/GuDKPqpik9u ), I think you’ll see that, like this photo, the area shown is very level, with low boundary walls along the front gardens, unlike Wrensfield where there are very few level roads and very few boundary walls. The walls, houses, flats (incl. width of their chimneys) and bend in the road all match Hawnby Close, Fairfield.

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    • I think the flat you can see on the left is the one my nana moved into when they knocked the houses down in Light Pipe Hall Road in Oxbridge around 1968-69. My other nana had the one on the far right some time later and about 1998 my mam moved into one on Cornfield Road.

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  6. Peter – Are you sure this is the Wrensfield Estate?, or are my memories playing tricks on me. Could it be the estate around Bath Lane area?.
    I say this because we as a family lived on Wrensfield Road from when the estate was first built and still in progress as kids. To my knowledge and distant memories Wrensfield Road from house numbers 1 to 17 on the left hand side, and about half a dozen houses from the left off this road were the only houses to have a brick wall similar to what is shown on the photo. The reason for this was because these houses were built above path and roadway so there was a steep lawn down to the path so a wall was in position to contain any garden. The rest of the estate although on steep roads / closes, the gardens were level to the roadway so no wall existed. The only other circumstances where houses had a wall was because they were actually lower than the path / roadway.
    I must admit it does look like Brownsbridge, but after looking and racking my brains I don’t think it is. Can anyone else confirm what I believe?.
    Dave.

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    • the three storey flats look exactly like the flats in Fairfield. There were three roads circling them. Brookfield Road, Gunnerside Road and where this photo was taken looks like its in Cornfield Road where my mother lived. This side of the flats had a couple of small cull de sacs opposite with three or four houses in them either side. If I am right then directly behind the person taking the picture is Fairfield primary school. You could take a picture there now and the scene would look exactly the same, apart from the kids of course who would now be sat inside on their computers.

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  7. I don’t, but I worked at Wrensfield Junior Training Centre… later Wrensfield School. A school for children with special needs during that time. I remember the estate well.

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  8. The tall boy to the left in front of the batsman could be Paul (Molly) Derbyshire. Great times those days, the kids happy playing together and guess what not a single mobile phone!

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    • I don’t think that is ‘Molly’, we were kids together at Browns Bridge. I think this is Hawnby Close at Fairfield which is where Molly’s uncle Dave used to live. My sister used to live in the top right flat before she moved further round Gunnerside Road.

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  9. This may start a different discussion Peter… It could be they are playing what we called “hot rice” rather that proper cricket. The bowler would try and hit the batsman, who would defend with the bat and could hit it in any direction. If the batsman was hit or caught he was out to the bowler. Whoever fielded the ball got the chance to bowl from where it was stopped, and the bowler could progressively move closer to the batsman if he intercepted the ball quickly, making it easier to strike the batsmen. So there was no set bowler, and the batsman changed whenever he was out to the shout of hot rice. Don’t ask me why! Anyone else remember this street game or variation.? Just one of many that kids used to amuse themselves with.

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    • When I was young in the 1950’s and early 60’s, we played “hot rice” using tennis rackets. Whoever got the ball had to hit the lad with the racket on the body somewhere. If he did he would take over the racket. Any number of “players” could join in. There was always someone who didn’t like being “out”, and would insist he hadn’t been hit. Whatever happened to those games we played as kids? Our variation didn’t “bowl” as such, but throw the ball. There was no limit to how close you could get to the racket holder, as far as I remember.

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