11. Before you in the order - The Cricket “Giants” at Limpsfield

Presidency of Limpsfield Cricket Club, from it’s formation, belonged to the Lords of the Manor at Titsey Estate, Limpsfield.

The Leveson-Gower family provided a number of players to both Oxted and Limpsfield Cricket Clubs and donated the Cricket Pitch at Limpsfield.

On pages 205-207 of his Memoirs “Off and On the field”, HDG Leveson-Gower describes how nearly every year he would get together “a number of good cricketers” to play for his XI on Limpsfield Common.

“In the past I have played a good deal on the village green at Limpsfield and I used nearly every year to get together a number of good cricketers to play for my XI on the Common, so that the local public should have a chance to see these great players perform”.

Those “good cricketers” included Lord Hawke, RE Foster, Johnny Douglas, “Plum” Warner, BJT Bosanquet (inventor of The Googly) . Most famously of these, WG Grace himself is recorded in Leveson-Gower’s book as having been wary of facing local fast bowler Neville Knox.

In the attaching picture are WG Grace and Bobby 'The Guv'nor' Abel, both of England, walking the boundary at Limpsfield, taken probably adjacent to where the Heavy Roller is kept today.

The following names, a pantheon of Victorian Cricketing Giants, all appeared for HDG Leveson-Gower's XI at Limpsfield between 1989-1909 :

R Abel 1905, 1906, 1909
EP Baily 1898*
R Baily 1904*
BJT Bosanquet 1903, 1904, 1905
J Crawford /JN Crawford 1902, 1907
VFS Crawford 1907
Davis 1909
J Douglas 1903, 1904, 1906
Edwards 1909
FL Fane 1906
RE Foster 1900
JH Gordon 1905
WT Graburn 1902
Dr WG Grace 1905
Lord Hawke 1903
C Headlam 1903, 1904
JB Hobbs 1907
KL Hutchings 1906
FS Jewell [MFS?] 1909
RP Keigwin 1907
FP Knox 1903*
N Knox 1902*, 1904*, 1905*, 1906*, 1907, 1909*
Lees 1909
Rev FA Leveson Gower 1902, 1904, 1906
HDG Leveson Gower 1898, 1900, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1907, 1909
Marshal 1909
PR May 1905
Myers 1909
GG Napier 1905, 1906
C Palmer 1902*, 1904*, 1905*,
MN Payne [MW?] 1906
Platt 1909
RG Pridmore 1903
WW Read 1904
J Reunert 1909
RO Schwarz 1904, 1905*
GA Scott 1905, 1906, 1907*
FL Shand 1900
RH Spooner 1904
H Strudwick 1909
Vigar 1909
JN Tonge 1898
PF Warner 1900, 1902, 1904
GJV Weigall 1900, 1906