Kent County Cricket Club in 1906
After dominating county cricket in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, the players who made up Kent's great side of the 1840s had retired and by the 1850s the county had been reduced to often having to amalgamate with other sides to produce a challenging team. The formation of a County Club in Maidstone in 1859 and the amalgamation of this with the original Kent Cricket Club in 1870 to create the modern Kent County Cricket Club, provided the basis for re-emergence, although the club suffered from financial instability and Lord Harris's view was that Kent could not hope to compete at the level it once had throughout the 1870s and 1880s. When the County Championship was formerly established in 1890 Kent were initially able to finish only in mid table.
White Hart Field
Teams representing Kent played two matches on the ground in 1841 and 1842 against an England team. The second match, which took place in August 1842, marks the first match which Kent County Cricket Club played after the official formation of the club during the 1842 Canterbury Cricket Week. These two matches were retrospectively awarded first-class cricket status. The final recorded match on the ground took place in 1847 when the Gentlemen of Kent played the Gentlemen of Surrey. The ground was the home ground of Bromley Cricket Club between 1856 and 1886.