Hidden inside a converted coal shed in St Albans is the world's most intricately designed miniature cricket ground.

Breath-taking for its sheer wealth of detail, the wee Howard's Wood Cricket Ground has all the trappings of a major Test arena without the security hassles, growling jobsworths and overpriced falling-over water.

Peter Coombs and his youngest son, Mark, created this fantasy cricket world where entire Ashes series have been contested and my eleven-year-old daughter scored a century before lunch on Tuesday.

It began in an airfield caravan in 1961 when Peter, a civil engineer, was servicing experimental aircraft for Handley Page.

To fill in the lengthy interludes while the planes were on test flights, he laid a piece of baize on the floor and devised a game using a tiny wooden bat and rubber ball.

Test matches were played against their colleagues at neighbouring Avros.

Peter had filled his spare time drawing cartoons and making toys and models. Made redundant in 1970, he took a correspondence art course and turned his hand to painting and picture framing.

Within a few years he was illustrating books and his paintings were appearing in galleries and exhibitions throughout the world.

He developed an after-dinner act in which he combined painting a full-sized picture with witty anecdotes and drawing hints.

His first two lads had no enthusiasm for cricket, so not until Mark showed an early interest did Peter retrieve the baize from the loft and develop the present model.

Mark began drawing when he was three, won a watercolour prize when seven and became hooked on cricket at nine.

Amazingly patient, he has an astonishing capacity for detail. Using tin soldiers, he made replicas of more than 100 famous players, each taking a day to produce, before creating nearly 1,000 spectators.

Fastened to their seats with Blutac, they are controlled by a solitary policeman.

Mark carved the tiny bats and balls from balsa, adding logos, maker's names and even the ball's stitching.

Each bat has a longer extension handle joined to its top at right angles. Each bowler has a metal loop, its design varied to produce a trajectory peculiar to that player.

The ball is propelled by placing it on the loop and rotating its support handle. When I batted shortly after surgery on my hand, I was able to manipulate leg byes from my bandaged fingers.

Peter soon designed the 'Frindall pad' to fit on the batsman's forefinger. Fielders have plastic traps fitted to their feet to take catches.

Dominated by an impressive pavilion surmounted by fluttering flags (wafted by a fan), and surrounded by tiered stands, some with tented roofs like The Mound at Lord's, the ground includes working scoreboards and a replay screen.

A timed overhead lighting system reproduces authentic conditions so that shadows move out from the pavilion as the assimilated day wears on.

The pavilion houses a Long Room, replete with paintings and trophies, and a library with miniscule Wisdens that can be opened and read.

One rooftop area contains a tropical Pimms bar.

Originally the square had three baize pitches; their pile shaved in varying degrees to assist spin or pace and bounce.

They were recently re-laid and the main pitch is prepared from a mix of sawdust, cornflower and PVA glue that begins damp to assist the faster bowlers, before drying out and wearing to help the tweakers.

Tragically, cancer claimed the lives of Peter, 78, and Margaret, his bride of nearly 54 years, within nine days last month.

The MCC may exhibit this unique model ground next year. It has already appeared at Olympia and at various charity and benefit games.

It should have been used to play out all those abandoned county matches this season - Worcestershire might even have avoided relegation.