THORP Perrow is a 100-acre arboretum, reckoned among the country’s finest, a couple of miles outside Bedale in North Yorkshire.

“No 1 of seven attractions in Bedale,” says the Trip Advisor website hardly surprisingly, without supposing what the subsequent six might be.

Amid the trees is a bird of prey and mammal centre – meerkats, wallabies, a llama named Marlon, which may or may not be named after the particularly dozy one in The Perishers – while at the end of a drive stands the magnificent Thorp Perrow Hall.

The cricket pavilion is a bit less stately, may even be supposed to have seen better days and not for some years a paint pot, but is for all that quite wonderful.

The single word “Umpires” is painted above two external coat hooks, from which hang two once-white coats. Another sign reads “TPCC teas”, though it may be a long time since anyone so much as boiled a kettle, not least because there’s no electricity.

Only a romantic, or an enterprising film director, might recall the hymn line about pavilioned in splendour and girded with praise,

It would be a perfect film set, a perpetual period piece, for all that. Last week it was the leafy venue for Thorp Perrow v Richmond Mavericks, Wensleydale Evening League division two.

THORP Perrow is now owned by Sir Henry Ropner, 33, following the death in 2016 of his father, Sir John.

The family came from Germany in the 1850s, the arboretum developed in the 1920s by Sir William, a member of the Forestry Commission, and thereafter by his son, Sir Leonard. Sir John is said to have observed that he wished his father had collected French impressionist paintings instead of trees – “but no such luck.”

Sir Leonard is also said to have loved fireworks and to have fired croquet balls from the cannon in front of the house.

Sir Henry is a friend of the Duchess of Cambridge, with whom he was at university, said by the Daily Telegraph in 2006 to have been “on hand to cheer her up” when Kate and Prince Harry temporarily split.

Lady Natasha, Sir Henry’s wife, can include on her own CV that she once posed as Venus for Country Life.

They are a shipping management family, though Sir Leonard became Conservative MP for Sedgefield in the 1920s – his majority just six, it didn’t last – and later for Barkston Ash, in west Yorkshire.

Jeremy Ropner, one of Sir Henry’s cousins, was twice the Tory candidate for Bishop Auckland in the 1960s – a rather trickier windmill – though may better be remembered because, with his own cousin Bruce, he was British doubles bobsleigh champion in 1962.

Jeremy died. A piece in The Times in February this year suggested that, at 84, Bruce wasn’t just alive and well but still heading downhill all the way.

THE hosts bat, lose a wicket second ball and after two overs are three down, the wickets all claimed by Andrew Hines.

Though the flag flies outside the hall, there’s no sign of Sir Henry watching such early setbacks from his bedroom window, or of heading over the hill with the cavalry.

Probably like the Ropner family, the Mavericks have a crest and a Latin motto – Non pedicare cupiunt. It translates, allegedly, as “They don’t like it up ‘em.

Young Hines answers universally to Beansy, as in 57 varieties. Team-mate Joe Southgate is Sloppy – as in Sloppy Joe, presumably – Christian Player is Crimbo and wicketkeeper Adam Dunwoody simply Woody.

Beansy’s opening bowling partner is Adam, my elder son whose birth we registered six weeks after the event following much struggling to find a name to which the letter “y” could not casually and copiously be appended. They call him Mossy, instead.

Though last summer the lad claimed seven wickets for as many runs, in this game he’s less successful though, as was said of Scrooge before the spirits, giving nothing away. “I’ve never had two slips before,” he says, spoiled because his dad’s there.

A league rule decrees that none may bowl off more than 12 yards. One or two of these boys may not cover 12 yards in an over.

Mind, you can tell Thorp Perrow are getting worried. “It’s in for’t night now,” says a fielder as the third of four drops of rain fails half-heartedly onto a straw-coloured outfield.

Though Dan Brown hits a sturdy 31, Thorp are timbered for just 63, the effort not helped by history’s most outrageously unsuccessful reverse sweep.

The gentleman departs wearing his bat on his head, essaying a rich vein of imprecation, chiefly directed at himself.

Mavericks, supposing the target easily to be attainable, insist upon batting in reverse order, which means that the bairn ambles out to open.

“See you in a minute,” he says.

THE innings has barely begun before Sir Henry, open necked but immaculately suited, can be seen approaching, amiably, from the direction of the big, the very big, house.

Were this Wodehouse, he would be followed by a butler with a tray of something invigorating and, very likely, an under-butler with a couple of punnets of strawbs.

Sir Henry walks alone, but with an immediate effect upon the home skipper. Go easy on the imprecation, he advises.

Sir Henry professes himself more of a rugby man – “I have the right build for it” – played a bit of cricket at school, recalls a first ball six as an 11-year-old.

“I was spectacularly out next ball,” he adds, self-effacingly. “I’d love to play a bit more, but I’m working very hard just now.”

He’d also love to have more cricket at Thorp Perrow – “country house cricket is a wonderful tradition” – offers free use of the facilities to any who vouchsafe to help maintain them. Then he has to go back for his tea.

INVERTED jobbery, Mavericks are soon 20-7, at once suggesting why the term “tail-end” is so often followed by the suffix “Charlie.” Philip Lumb, P Lumb lbw, is chiefly among the wickets.

The fray’s eventually joined by star man Mike Layfield, who plays in the NYSD for Richmond and who smites a swift 29 to help bring proceedings to a close. Sloppy, it should be said, hits a six half way to the A1.

The game has been characterised by honesty, sportsmanship and much laughter, the combatants happily back for mince and dumplings to the Waggon and Horses in Bedale.

The Mavericks are discussing their end-of-season outing, decide that it should embrace a pub in every village in the second division but put the open-top bus on hold. Like their opponents, they just glory in the real and simple pleasures of the grass roots; it’s for others to grow trees.