An elegant way of spending an afternoon in the Forest is taking afternoon tea at the Speech House, a 17th Century architectural treasure at the heart of the Forest (it is always addressed as ‘THE Speech House’).

It’s a civilised way of spending a spring afternoon, appreciating the ancient charm of the building and looking over the adjoining great event open area, which in its time has seen carnivals, public meetings and cricket matches.

The great liberal politician Charles Dilke, member of parliament for the forest at the turn of the century, 19th to 20th, had his constituency headquarters there. Winters in those days must have been more severe than nowadays, as because of snow drifts he was often unable to reach the high forest at the Speech House, having to rearrange his winter constituency meetings to low lying Newnham on the River Severn, at the now sadly derelict Victoria hotel. The former Forest Hospital on the way from Newnham to political meetings at the Speech House was the Dilke hospital, now sadly deprived of its Dilke appellation.

Ast the Speech House, in the elegant orangery room, you may notice a portrait of the notorious ‘Hanging Judge’ George Jeffries, who was handing out executions at the time of the founding of the hotel around 1680, but I can’t find any connection of the Hanging Judge with the Speech House.

The extensive Speech House grounds have been a venue for recreation and for political speeches, in the days when outdoor public speeches were an integral part of the political system. Charles Dilke and later 20th century politicians had well attended public meetings there.

And there was a Speech House Cricket team, in perhaps the most scenic cricket ground in the country. Trevor Tompkins gathered together an eclectic team of cricketers, and I enjoyed a few interesting matches there, before retiring to the Speech House bar after the match. The club only played on week days as all of the players were attached to clubs that played at weekends. Trevor was a devious slow bowler, whose innocent looking deliveries were really hidden deadly hand grenades. He and Peter James were opening bowlers at weekends, and in the days when there were no restrictions on the numbers of overs that a bowler could take, would bowl throughout the opponents’ innings, leaving the Speech House club able to select 8 batsmen, a wicket keeper to score all the runs and leaving the opening bowlers to bowl throughout their opponents’ innings.

Looking over the former cricket ground from the Speech House, with a misleadingly cheerful Hanging Judge smiling down at me, brings back memories of idyllic cricket matches in the forest setting, enjoying great hospitality at the Speech House afterwards.