Sussex in 1728 are more likely to have been the first properly representative county matches. Teams under the patronage of landowners such as Edwin Stead of Dartford and Lord John Sackville, who established the Sevenoaks Vine ground on his Knole Park estate, increasingly became more representative of Kent as a county, and in 1744 a Kent team organised by Sackville played England at the Artillery Ground, a match which was commemorated in a poem by James Love. Under the patronage of Sackville's son, John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, and Sir Horatio Mann, Kent continued to field strong teams throughout the last quarter of the 18th century, and were, along with Surrey, the main challengers to the Hampshire teams organised primarily by the Hambledon Club. The first inter-county match now considered to have first-class status was played between Kent and Surrey in 1773, and in 1787 a failed attempt to form a Kent County Club, with Dorset and Mann involved, was made at Coxheath. Inter-county matches declined towards the end of the 18th century, possibly as a result of a lack of investment during the Napoleonic Wars, although Kent teams continued to play matches. The resumption of matches between county sides in 1825, when Kent met Sussex at Brighton's Royal New Ground, saw matches organised by clubs in different parts of the county. A second attempt to form a County Club was made during the 1830s at Town Malling, backed by lawyers Thomas Selby and Silas Norton, alongside George Harris, 3rd Baron Harris. Selby and Norton recruited Fuller Pilch from Norfolk, considered the best batsman in England, to play at Town Malling and maintain the cricket ground. Pilch played in Kent teams alongside players such as Alfred Mynn, Nicholas Felix, Ned Wenman and William Hillyer which dominated English cricket, winning 98 matches during the period, and the team is considered to have been the leading county side for six seasons out of the seven between 1837 and 1843. The expense of running county games meant that Town Malling proved too small to support a county club, and the club was wound up in 1841, Pilch moving to the Beverley club at Canterbury. The first county clubs: 1842–1870 The Beverley Cricket Club was formed in 1835 at the Canterbury estate of brothers John and William de Chair Baker, initially playing in the St Stephen's district of the city before moving