Brimlands playing fields are about a third of a kilometre west of Hele, on the southern slopes of Hillsborough. They are bordered to the north by the Iron Age hill-fort and to the south by the main road from Ilfracombe to Combe Martin. The playing fields were levelled in the 1930's; before that the land was arable and was known as Brimlin's Fields. A building on the site of the current pavilion was called Brimland Barn on the first detailed Ordnance Survey map of 1889.

The first element of the place name probably comes from the Middle English meaning of brim, the "border, margin, edge or brink, as of the sea or any piece of water". Another possibility is from brimble, local dialect for bramble, but the fields here were probably cultivated until recently (Gosse wrote in 1853 that the fields were then growing corn).

"Down the slope of the Quay fields, over the rustic bridge that strides the deep road leading to Larkstone cove, between hedges full of blossom, on which the gay tortoise-shell butterfly is fluttering, and scores of banded and yellow snails are crawling, and along the foot-path through the corn beside Brimlin's Fields to the high road" (Gosse 1853 p 129)

Brimland Barn is so-called on the OS map of 1891, where the rugby and cricket pavilion is now.

The original Middle English use of brim is "The border, margin, edge or brink, as of the sea or any piece of water" (SOED 1987 Vol.1 p238)

Linn (and lin) Cornish, 1 A waterfall; 2 A pool, especially into which a cataract falls 1577; 3 A ravine 1799 (SOED 1987 Vol 1 p 1219)