Date-stamped : 12 Mar95 - 18:38
IN PRAISE OF COUNTRY HOUSE CRICKET - John C. Woodcock

At the turn of the century, I Zingari,  founded  in  1845 and the
oldest  of wandering clubs, played 56 days cricket, 21 of them at
country houses. Their hosts would give a  house   party  to  mark
their   visit,   often   in   the  grandest  style.  On the field
there would  generally  be  several  players with  experience  of
first-class  cricket,  sometimes  a  professional  amongst  them.
From  1850 onwards at some of the  larger country  houses,   pro-
fessionals  had  been engaged for the season, or a part of it, to
coach the young gentlemen and to  make sure  that  the squire won
more matches and therfore more money than he lost.

To Holkham in Norfolk, seat of the   Earls   of   Leicester,  had
gone   James  Grundy,  who,  when  he played for Nottinghamshire,
"could keep dropping William Lillywhite and his son, John, two of
the finest players of their time.  As the game gained in popular-
ity, more and more landed families felt the need of a ground   of
their own.

Those at Highclere, where the South Africans are   playing  today
[June   23,1994] as guests of the Earl of Carnarvon, and at Arun-
del, where visiting sides have been starting their tours for more
than  30  years, were laid down at the end of the last centu- ry.
Highclere was created by the present Earl`s grandfather   in  his
lovely  park,  designed  by  Capability Brown, just south of New-
bury; the ground at Arundel, Sussex lies alongside  the   battle-
mented walls of the Earl Marshal`s castle.

Today, out of 28 days cricket, IZ have only half a  dozen of  the
country house variety.  This is partly because of the dif- ficul-
ty of finding young players able to make  themselves avail-  able
for   a whole weekend.  There is also the commercial aspect.  The
charges now widely levied for lunch  and  teas  and  drinks   and
balls  would  have been unthinkable in former days.  But here and
there the old traditions are upheld. At Torry Hill, for  example,
Lord  Kingsdown  rolls  back the years; so do Sir John Starkey at
Norwood Park and Lord Cobham at Hagley Hall and not a few  others
I  am  sure.  Even there, though, the host might well be seen now
working marking out the pitch or mowing the outfield.

Only at Camden Park, 60 miles from  Sydney,  will  Australi-  ans
come  across  anything  of  their own remotely resembling country
house cricket.  In South Africa the Oppenheimers have  their  own
ground  at  Halfway House, some 25 miles from Johannesburg, while
in Viceroy`s India, if you knew the right Maharajahs - Porbandar,
Cooch  Behar,  Baroda, Vizianagram, Pataila-Dungarpur - there was
nowhere in the world where you could have been more lavishly  in-
dulged.   Today,  at  Highclere,  where the Queen and the Duke of
Edinburgh will be in attendance, the South Africans  will  get  a
glimpse, at least, of this age of elegance. In their ten weeks in
England it maybe the last time they do.

Source: The Times, June 23rd 1994.
<END> Contributed by John Evans (en92jrfe@exeter.ac.uk)