Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

98 The death of Lionel Robinson and the fate of his cricket ground the cricket square was not his highest priority; certainly South Norfolk’s last game at Old Buckenham took place as early as 5 August. There was, however, no clue of the drastic events to come. Decline and fall of Old Buckenham Hall and its cricket pitch By the winter of 1931-2 it was clear that Gates was running short of funds. It would be all too easy to state that he had finally drunk himself into penury, aided by Len Hart and the rest of the South Norfolk Club, but times were hard and even the most hard-bitten and sober businessman might have found it troublesome to the point of ruination to maintain the upkeep of the cash-hungry Hall, let alone the cricket pitch. Gates was far from such a man and he had no option but to move out of the Hall into somewhere much more affordable and put the Hall itself up for sale. He arranged for Messrs Nicholas to publish a catalogue ‘Old Buckenham Hall Sale 1932’ and to hold an auction at the Royal Hotel, Norwich on 4 June. 67 In contrast to the 908 lots offered for sale by Prince Freddy in 1906, Everard Gates had his estate divided into just 36 lots. Special mention was made of the well-appointed cricket pavilion (with showers and lavatories, an office, a kitchen and a central tea-room), the collection of paintings and the stud farm, with its winter paddocks, large loose boxes and outbuildings. The Hall itself was described as having been rebuilt in 1911 by Messrs Cubitt from the designs of Detmar Blow and to have been further modernised in 1927 (a total of 29 telephones was noted). The economic situation globally meant that it was an inauspicious time to try and sell a large country house and Gates failed to find a buyer. Kelly’s Directory of Norfolk for 1933 reports that the Hall was unoccupied and that, although Gates was listed as being one of the principal landowners in the parish of Old Buckenham, he did not appear to be living locally. Faced with the loss of their picturesque ground and their superb wicket, which rarely received less than rave reviews, the South Norfolk Club behaved in a manner that can only be described as pusillanimous – essentially the club was wound up. Two brief tours, each of three matches, were arranged in 1932 and 1933, with five of the matches being played at Skegness and one at Sleaford. They were, however, very much a coda to the history of the club proper. It was notable that, during the mid and late 1930s, there were clubs representing East Norfolk, West Norfolk and North Norfolk; the absence of the ‘fourth’ club stood out. Perusal of the Eastern Daily Press suggests that no cricket at all was played at Old Buckenham between 1932 and 1935, but the village team came back to life (again) in 1936. The quality of the play was poor, with each Old Buckenham wicket scoring less than six runs on average. Interestingly, the press reported that some of the club’s home matches were played at ‘Old Buckenham Hall’ which would seem to imply that those fixtures were played amid the slowly decaying wreck of Lionel’s once-magnificent estate. 67 Gates had actually tried to sell Old Buckenham Hall once before, in April 1928; the catalogue describing that sale being positively threadbare compared to that issued for the sale of Prince Freddy’s estate. Beyond the existence of this catalogue, there is little evidence that Gates was in financial difficulties as early as 1928.