Dorset Square

Dorset Square occupies a site that once served as the birthplace of modern cricket. In seventeen eighty-seven, an entrepreneur named Thomas Lord leased this land, then known as Dorset Fields, to create a private venue for the sport. The ground became the original home of the Marylebone Cricket Club, which still acts as the guardian of the laws of cricket today. At the time, this area was the northern edge of London where the city met open fields. Thomas Lord operated the space not just as a pitch, but as a commercial spectacle, complete with an on-site wine shop and capacity for thousands of spectators. When he eventually faced a rent increase, he packed up his turf and moved his operation further north, eventually settling at the current site of Lord's Cricket Ground. The Portman Estate then redeveloped these fields into the quiet, residential square you see now.