Lives in Cricket No 38 - Lionel Robinson

25 Robinson comes to Norfolk the estate was due to Robinson rather than his predecessor. He had sumptuous gardens laid out, with first-class facilities for shooting, and created a well-appointed stud farm that survives to this day. Although Prince Freddy did not exactly live in a hovel, his hall was not grand enough for Lionel. He promptly had the building demolished and, after two new-builds were deemed unsatisfactory and met with a similar fate, finally, by 1911, had completed a mansion which he deemed suitable for a member of the English landed gentry - which is exactly what he aspired to be. The house has been described as either ‘1930s baroque’ or ‘neo-Jacobean’ in style and contained a magnificent ballroom (part of an enormous entrance hall) and no fewer than 14 bathrooms with all ‘mod cons’. Bricks had to be specially imported from the Netherlands to meet Lionel’s requirements. It has been estimated that he spent nearly £1m before he was satisfied; to put this in context, when he passed away in 1922 he left just under £250,000 – a goodly sum for that time but an amount dwarfed by that he had spent on his hall. A glimpse of the grandeur inside the hall was later provided by Allan Sewell, architect son of the headmaster of the school established there in the 1930s. ‘The Oak Room (was) a beautiful oak-panelled room with a ceiling coved in to form a dome. The windows were leaded in stone mullions in a bay, with a French window in a four-cornered arch. The stone fireplace with its carved over-mantle was flanked either side with fitted bookshelves, drawers and cupboards, also of carved oak. The Dining Room was likewise oak-panelled with a beautiful strap-work ceiling and a stone- surrounded fireplace with a room-height carved oak over mantle in the Corinthian order... The real jewel was the Drawing Room. This was a really lovely room decorated in moulded plasterwork in a rococo Ionic order.... The walnut chimney piece was decorated with swags of fruit and flowers in lime-wood, in the manner of Grinling Gibbons. The centre of the ceiling was a recessed oval with concealed lighting which, combined with candlelight wall brackets, gave the room a lovely subdued light with soft shadows. In the centre of the house was the Grand Staircase, some six or seven feet wide with generous tread and beautifully carved twisted banisters. This was lit from a central light- well by a large mullioned window, each casement with its own stained glass shield.’ The village cricket club at Old Buckenham When Lionel Robinson purchased the estate at Old Buckenham there was already a cricket club active in the village which played friendly games against local opposition on Saturdays. It was, however, a far from flourishing club as is clear from the coverage of its matches in the local press. The Eastern Daily Press never included its matches in its lists of fixtures published on Saturday mornings and rarely bothered to give the results of games involving Old Buckenham – only four were reported for the whole of the 1908 season. Even when the results were printed, they tended to be ‘potted scores’ rather than full batting scorecards – only the