Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

16 Chapter Two Reigate Priory IN REIGATE HUNDRED The king holds in demesne REIGATE. Queen Edith held it. It was then assessed at 37 ½ hides, now the king’s use at 34 hides. In demesne are three ploughs and 67 villans and 11 borders with 26 ploughs. There are two mills rendering 12s less 2d, and twelve acres of meadow. [There is] woodland for 140 pigs as pannage, and from the herbage 45 pigs. It is now valued at £40, and renders as much. The ploughs, meadows and pigs are nowadays less in evidence than they were at the time of the Domesday Book, having been replaced by outer suburban development in a town close enough to the metropolis to make it an attractive part of the London commuter belt, yet far enough away for its inhabitants to enjoy some of the best of the Surrey countryside. There has not been an actual Priory in Reigate since 1535. Henry VIII saw to that. It was originally founded in the early 13th century and was converted to a mansion following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In June 1541 Henry VIII granted the Manor and Priory of Reigate to Lord William Howard, uncle of Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife. The name lives on to the present day in the town’s cricket and other sports clubs. The railway arrived in Reigate in 1841, so the town’s rôle as a country retreat for city workers alongside its longer-established one as a thriving market centre was developing throughout Walter’s childhood and adolescence. Famous residents of the town, past and present, include Dame Margot Fonteyn who was born there, Spike Milligan and, from the sporting world, George Best and Pat Pocock. The name of Walter Read does not appear alongside these in Wikipedia . Perhaps it should. Bill Frindall was a pupil at Reigate GS (and former Surrey quick Joey Benjamin did a bit of coaching there after he retired from the first-class game). From his earliest days Walter was a prodigious talent, being