Lives in Cricket No 36 - WE Astill

19 northern end of the park in 1851, and the boundary between Leicester and Knighton until 1892. The two houses, Rockdene (originally called Clydesdale) at 232 and Houghton House, had been built in 1885 for the boot-and-shoe manufacturers Thomas and Frederick Creek. The former was later occupied by the cattle-dealer Frederick Lee and in 1929 gave the Astills as neighbour the dry-salter Charles Lockwood Brook. At Houghton House William Ewart lived for the remainder of his playing career. The family remained very close, the closeness extending even beyond the immediate family, for when he was away on tour his mother would often invite his younger cousin Grace Briggs to stay with the words ‘You had better come and keep his bed aired’. Birthdays of siblings and cousins he never missed if he could possibly avoid it, and on these occasions he always played the piano, his favourite song being ‘I’m tickled to death I’m single’. Although William Ewart’s ‘first proper club’ was, as mentioned, the Manor Club, he really made his name when under the captaincy of his father and still a youngster he joined the locally famous Temperance Club which had been founded in Leicester in 1869, and he enjoyed two full years in the Leicester Town League, playing on Victoria Park, Belgrave Pasture and even the County ground. As ‘Reynard’ recalled many years later, in 1905 he took 76 wickets for ‘Temperance’ and the following year ‘a hundred at an average cost of six runs each’. 39 Among notable performances were six for 28 and six for 10 in the two matches v South End in 1905 and the following year, when he was a member of the County ground staff, nine five-wicket returns with a best of eight for 26 v Tyro and a highest score of 39 Leicester Sports Mercury , 24 June 1922, p 1. Boyhood Houghton House (with Rockdene to the left), Ewart’s Leicester home for most of his playing career.