Lord's Cricket Ground, better known as Lord's, is a cricket venue at St John's Wood, historically in Middlesex and now in the City of Westminster, London NW8. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and serves as the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), ICC Europe and, until August 2005, the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Lord's is widely referred to as the "home of cricket" and houses the world's oldest sporting museum.

Lord's today is not on its original 18th-century site; it is the third of three grounds which Thomas Lord established between 1787 and 1814. His first ground, now referred to as Lord's Old Ground, was where Dorset Square now stands. Lord's Middle Ground was in use from 1811 to 1813, before being abandoned for the construction of Regent's Canal which carved its way through the outfield. Lord's present ground is about 250 yards (230 m) north-west of the previous Middle Ground site. The ground can hold 31,100 spectators, its capacity increasing between 2017 and 2022 as part of MCC's ongoing redevelopment plans.

Acting on behalf of members of the White Conduit Club underwritten by George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea & Nottingham and Colonel the Hon. Charles Lennox, Thomas Lord opened his first cricket ground in May 1787 on Dorset Fields, a site leased from the Portman estate. White Conduit Club members, discontent with the ground maintenance of White Conduit Fields, moved from Islington to Marylebone soon afterwards reconstituting themselves as Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The establishment of Lord's new ground was a welcome prospect offering more privacy for its members, with White Conduit Fields considered too far from London's fashionable Oxford Street and the West End. The first match played at the new ground saw Middlesex play Essex. In 1811, feeling obliged to relocate because of a rise in rent, Lord removed the turf to a nearby interim site. The Middle Ground lay on the route decreed by parliament for the Regent's Canal, in addition to its location being unpopular with patrons.

Lord's Middle Ground's tenure on the Eyre family estate being short-lived, Colonel Henry Samuel Eyre offered another plot nearby, where Lord was to relay his cricket turf. The new ground at St John's Wood, leased from the Eyres, previously featured a duck pond and was situated on an incline, hence the Lord's pitches famous slope, which at the time was recorded as sloping down 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) from north-west to south-east, though in actuality the slope is 8 ft 1 in (2.46 m). The new ground was opened in the 1814 season, with MCC playing Hertfordshire in the first match at Lord's on 22 June 1814.

Lord's Tavern was built in 1813–14, followed by a wooden pavilion in 1814. First-class cricket was first played on the present ground in July 1814, with the MCC playing St John's Wood Cricket Club. The first century to be scored at the ground in first-class cricket was made by Frederick Woodbridge (107) for Epsom against Middlesex, with Epsom's Felix Ladbroke (116) recording the second century in the same match. The annual Eton v Harrow match, which had first been played at Lord's Old Ground in 1805, returned to the present ground on 29 July 1818. From 1822, the fixture became almost an annual event at Lord's.

Lord's witnessed the first double-century to be made in first-class cricket when William Ward scored 278 for the MCC against Norfolk in 1820. The original Lord's Pavilion, which had recently been renovated at great expense, was razed by fire following the first Winchester v Harrow match on 23 July 1823, which destroyed nearly all of MCC's original records and other cricket archives. The Pavilion was promptly rebuilt by Lord. In 1825, the future of the ground was placed in jeopardy when Lord proposed redeveloping the ground with housing at a time when St John's Wood was seeing rapid development. This was prevented by William Ward, who purchased the ground from Lord for £5,000. His purchase was celebrated in the following anonymous poem:

The first University Match between Oxford and Cambridge was held at Lord's in 1827, at the instigation of Charles Wordsworth, establishing what would be the oldest first-class fixture in the world until 2020. The ground remained under the ownership of Ward until 1835, after which it was handed over to James Dark. The Pavilion was refurbished in 1838, with the addition of gas lighting. Around this time Lord's could still be considered a country ground, with open countryside to the north and west. Lord's was described by Lord Cottesloe in 1845 as being a primitive venue, with low benches put in a circle around the ground at a good distance providing seating for spectators. Improvements to the ground were gradually made, with the introduction of a telegraph scoreboard in 1846. The Pavilion was extended on its north side in 1848 with an annex providing a separate entrance to the cricket field for professional players. In the same year scorecards were introduced for the first time, from a portable press, and drainage was installed in 1849–50.