We think of this as a cricket ground but over the years it has also hosted hockey, rugby union, league, association football, cycling, rifle practice, band displays, dog racing, baseball, lacrosse, softball, open-air religious services, opera, jamborees, military displays and political and royal visits. Some have been unusual or noteworthy. In 1879 the first public display of electricity in the country took place here. Twenty years later Captain Lorraine, balloonist, aeronaut and blow-hard, got blown away, literally. He took off successfully but the wind pushed the balloon south-east, forcing the self-styled King of Parachutists to drop into Wellington College instead of the Basin Reserve, where the crowd was waiting for him. In 1913 some of the Buckle Street fencing was damaged during the waterfront strike. But since 1884 cricket has been top dog. Cricketers love statistics: by 1997 it had hosted 329 first-class and international matches, the countrys largest tally. Here, a plaque explains, Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones set a world record test partnership for any wicket against Sri Lanka. Now one of the countrys most significant grounds, the Basin was the first sports ground registered by the Historic Places Trust (now Heritage New Zealand).
There are several historic structures. The playing oval (1863, although it was never that shape) was brought into the modern era in 1979-81 when the big R.A. Vance Stand appeared on the western boundary and the eastern bank was developed. Older buildings include the late 19th-century groundsmans shed, the 1923 gates (later named the C.S. Dempster and J.R. Reid Gates after prominent cricketers) and the 1924 Museum Stand, which housed the New Zealand Cricket Museum.
One of the most intriguing structures is the memorial to Colonel William Wakefield, leader of the New Zealand Companys Wellington settlement from 1840. When he died in 1848 friends raised money for a memorial but, like everything to do with the Company, it went awry. They finally ordered this little folly from a British foundry in 1862 but it lay in storage for 20 years before the council put it up inside the Basin Reserve. Here it stayed until 1917 when it was exiled to the side of the three-lane road which surrounds the grounds. Deemed beyond repair more than 40 years ago, it was fixed up and rededicated on a new site inside the grounds in 2006.
Historic it may be, but the Basin continues to evolve. In 2012 the Museum Stand was yellow-stickered after a negative earthquake assessment in the wake of the Canterbury 2010/11 quakes. Its future remains uncertain. Controversial plans for an expensive and intrusive flyover along its northern edge as part of improvements to this notorious traffic bottleneck suggest that more changes are on the way.
