Leyton Cricket Ground (formerly known as the County Ground or the Lyttelton Ground) is a
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
ground in
Leyton
Leyton () is a town in east London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It borders Walthamstow to the north, Leytonstone to the east, and Stratford to the south, with Clapton, Hackney Wick and Homerton, across the River L ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. The ground was the headquarters and main home match venue of
Essex County Cricket Club from 1886 until 1933, and was also used by the club for matches between 1957 and 1977. It currently hosts club and community cricket matches and has a
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
pavilion.
Cricket ground
The ground has been used for cricket since the early 19th century.
Essex County Cricket Club played their first game there on 15 and 16 June 1885 against
Surrey; the game was lost by an
innings. The captain of Essex,
Charles Ernest Green, became convinced that the club's headquarters ground at
Brentwood was too small and isolated and he drove the campaign to acquire the Leyton ground. In 1886, the club purchased the ground from its owner, the cricket-loving
Lord Lyttelton, at a "favourable" price of £12,000. An appeal was launched for £3,500 for the construction of a
pavilion
In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings:
* It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...
, other necessary buildings and "general alterations". Lord Lyttelton was the first donor, contributing £200. Initially known as the "Lyttelton Ground", a local newspaper report claimed that the development of the site "gave unwonted loveliness to a district which but a short while since presented an appearance of the abomination of desolation", since the surrounding area had been sold off for the construction of new housing and a railway line. Although £2,900 had been raised by the appeal, the purchase of the Leyton Cricket Ground left the club in financial difficulty for decades. In March 1918, a
British tank nicknamed "Julian" was exhibited at the ground as part of a campaign to sell
war bond
War bonds (sometimes referred to as Victory bonds, particularly in propaganda) are debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war without raising taxes to an unpopular level. They are ...
s.
In 1921, the ground was sold to the
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
Sports Central Board, relieving the club of a £10,000
mortgage
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any ...
. Leyton Cricket Ground remained the headquarters of Essex County Cricket Club until 1933, when the club relinquished its lease. In 1931 the club had looked into the possibly of buying the ground again and launched an appeal for funds to help with the purchase, but by the end of the 1932 season Essex's poor financial situation led to the plan being dropped and the decision was made to remove the county's headquarters from Leyton. In 1933 Essex gave up the lease on Leyton, moved its headquarters to Chelmsford and commenced playing matches at a variety of venues around the county. Essex returned to play matches at Leyton in 1957, by then owned by the local council, and continued to play there until 1977, when
Trevor Bailey
Trevor Edward Bailey (3 December 1923 – 10 February 2011) was an England Test cricketer, cricket writer and broadcaster.
An all-rounder, Bailey was known for his skilful but unspectacular batting. As the BBC reflected in his obituary: "Hi ...
described Leyton as “our ugliest ground… but it had a certain gnarled charm”.
Charles Bray, who played for and captained Essex at Leyton, took a similar view of the ground in his history of the Essex club - "It certainly did not have beauty or charm....on a cheerless day it was a miserable place. Yet it had a character of its own and had been the stage for a great number of magnificent games."
The ground is now used for National Cricket League matches during the season, and hosts teams including Waltham Forest Cricket Club.
The wooden pavilion building still stands and has been a Grade II
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
since 1999. The site is protected by
Fields in Trust
Fields in Trust, is a British charity set up in 1925 as the National Playing Fields Association (NPFA), by Brigadier-General Reginald Kentish and the Duke of York, later King George VI, who was the first president, which protects parks and green s ...
through a legal "Deed of Dedication" safeguarding the future of the space as public recreation land for future generations to enjoy. In April 2017, former Essex and England captain
Graham Gooch
Graham Alan Gooch, (born 23 July 1953) is a former English first-class cricketer who captained Essex and England. He was one of the most successful international batsmen of his generation, and through a career spanning from 1973 until 2000, h ...
opened new cricket facilities at the Leyton ground, including outdoor
cricket nets
Cricket nets are used by batters and bowlers to practice their cricketing techniques. They consist of a cricket pitch (natural or artificial) enclosed by netting on either side, behind, and optionally above. The bowling end is left open.
Net ...
and a non-turf pitch (NTP). In 2019, it was announced that
Waltham Forest Borough Council and the
England and Wales Cricket Board
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the national governing body of cricket in England and Wales. It was formed on 1 January 1997 as a single governing body to combine the roles formerly fulfilled by the Test and County Cricket Board, ...
(ECB) were jointly investing £900,000 to improve the site for cricket use, part of the ECB’s South Asian Action Plan which aims to engage the
British Asian
British Asians (also referred to as Asian Britons) are British citizens of Asian descent. They constitute a significant and growing minority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with 6.9% of the population identifying as Asian/Asian Bri ...
community in the sport,
as a result of which, a covered Urban Cricket Centre was opened at the ground in June 2019 by Graham Gooch. In 2021, Waltham Forest Borough Council announced a restoration plan for the pavilion after it appeared on the
Heritage at Risk Register
An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for acti ...
.
Notable matches at Leyton
Essex played their first county match at the Leyton ground on 15 and 16 June 1885 against
Surrey. Surrey won by an innings, with
Walter Read
Walter William Read (born 23 November 1855 in Reigate, Surrey, died 6 January 1907 in Addiscombe Park, Surrey) was an English cricketer. A fluent right hand bat, he was also an occasional bowler of lobs who sometimes switched to quick overa ...
scoring 214. Essex were not a
first-class county at the time and the match did not carry first-class status. The match appears to have justified Essex's adoption of the Leyton ground; in the magazine ''Cricket'',
Charles W. Alcock
Charles William Alcock (2 December 1842 – 26 February 1907) was an English sportsman, administrator, author and editor. He was a major instigator in the development of both international football and cricket, as well as being the creator of ...
reported that "the Essex authorities were quite satisfied with the attendance". Essex were granted first-class status for the 1894 season and their inaugural first-class match was played at Leyton from 14 to 16 May 1894, against
Leicestershire. The visitors won by 68 runs.
For the 1895 season Essex were admitted to the
County Championship
The County Championship (referred to as the LV= Insurance County Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales and is organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). It bec ...
and the inaugural Championship game at Leyton resulted in a loss to Middlesex by five wickets. In the following game
Harry Pickett took all 10 wickets in Leicestershire’s innings, a performance which remains the best innings bowling figures for Essex as of 2021.
In 1899 the Leyton ground was the venue for Essex’s first victory over an
Australia touring team. The county led by 55 runs after the first innings and Australia had to chase a target of 200 to win on the final day of the game, but were bowled out for 73. Two years later, the county marked a less auspicious occasion at Leyton when they were bowled out by
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...
for 30, which remained their lowest first-class score until 2013.
In June 1905 Essex recorded a second victory over Australia at Leyton. In a low-scoring game, Essex won by 19 runs with
Claude Buckenham taking 12 wickets in the match, which was the only loss by the 1905 Australia team to a county team. In 1906 Leyton was the venue for another Essex victory over an international team, the 1906
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
touring side.
Essex's next win over an international team at Leyton in took place 1927, when they beat the
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
tourists, but more significantly the game featured the first broadcast commentary of a cricket match. The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
covered the first day with short periods of commentary during the afternoon and a summary at 6.45pm. The commentator was a former Essex player,
, who sat on the pavilion balcony so that crowd noise could be picked up by his microphone.
In June 1932
of Yorkshire made a world record first-class partnership for any wicket of 555 at Leyton. There was some controversy about the record, when Sutcliffe was dismissed with the total on 555, after which the Leyton scoreboard moved the total back to 554, meaning that the partnership had only equalled the previous record. After discussion between the Essex captain,
, the total was amended back to 555. Bray asked McGahey to ensure that a run was added to bring the total to the record-breaking figure, but later admitted that he was wrong and shouldn't have allowed the change. This remained the record for any wicket till 1945–46, and it was not until the 1976–77 season in Pakistan that it was beaten for the first wicket. As of 2021 it remains the
to a draw.
, the last first-class match at Leyton.
.
at the ground in the East London FA Cup Final in 1886. The game finished 2-2 and both teams shared the cup for six months each. In 1895
.
also occasionally played there at the ground, prior to moving to Osborne Road.
A building at the ground is used by Leyton Amateur
and other community groups.