Peter Bramley, another cricketing publican, kept the Old Spot in Daybrook, recently refurbished and re-named as The Cooper's Brook. He is recorded as the landlord there in 1823, and the pub must have stayed in the family for in 1855 it is in the hands of one W Bramley.
The first recorded match in which Peter Bramley's name appears is in 1813 when he played for the County Club in the annual match v a Town XI and for Nottingham v XXII of Leicester; in the latter game he took three wickets but failed to score in either innings.
Bramley was a regular member of the Nottingham Club until 1826, his last known match being versus Sheffield and Leicester at Darnall in July that year. His best score was 21 v Holt at Holt in 1821 and though he is known to have taken at least four wickets, no analysis is available. In important Nottingham matches he scored 118 runs at 9.08 and took 17 catches.
He seems to have had a mixed reputation - in the Nottingham Book of Scores he is, "...of jouyous face and mirthful eccentricities", but elsewhere Bramley was considered a ‘blackleg and a man without any conscience’ due to his gambling. After he died, however, it was discovered he was quietly quite generous and not as black as he had been painted.
A good batsman and fielder in the covers, he played from 1813 to 1826 and died on 5 November 1838 aged 53, at Graziers Halfway House, between Newark and Lincoln, another establishment that has changed name and use in the recent past.
July 2020
Nottinghamshire First-Class Number: 2