The MCC Museum was opened by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh in 1953 and is one of the oldest sporting museums in the world.

Its collection, which was begun in 1864, spans the full history of cricket from its emergence as a major sport in the early 18th century, to the modern age of Twenty20 and the IPL. It includes material relating to the greatest players and events but also the grassroots, community cricket clubs which form the bedrock of the game.

The Museum’s most famous exhibit is the original Ashes urn, a personal gift to England captain the Hon. Ivo Bligh in 1882/83, later donated to MCC by his widow in 1928.

This tiny and fragile object, cricket’s most precious artefact, rarely leaves Lord’s, when it last did so, for the 2006/07 MCC Travelex Ashes Exhibition in Australia more than 100,000 people came to see it.