Lord Winchilsea Raises an England XI at Burley-on-the-Hill — August 1800

By 1800 the MCC had been in existence for thirteen years and was already centralising the major-match calendar at Lord's. Patron-funded country fixtures, however, remained common — and Winchilsea, one of the MCC's founding members, continued to stage them at his own seats.

Winchilsea spent the early summer of 1800 contracting the leading professionals — Beldham, Walker, Harris — for the Burley match. The local Rutland side trained on the estate's home pitch through July.

Winchilsea had been the principal backer of the Hambledon Club from the 1780s and a founding subscriber to Thomas Lord's first ground in 1787. Through the 1790s he raised England XIs at his own expense to play against country opponents — sometimes for stakes of 500 or 1,000 guineas. The August 1800 Burley match followed the same template. Winchilsea's England side included William Beldham, Tom Walker and David Harris (in the last summer of his fast-bowling career). The Rutland & Leicestershire side, raised by local farmers and the Burley estate, was given odds — they fielded sixteen against the England XI. The match was played over two days on Burley's parkland strip, with the earl's marquee pitched at deep midwicket. The crowd, by contemporary report, ran into the thousands; admission was a shilling. The result is recorded in Haygarth's Scores and Biographies as a comfortable England win, but the totals are imperfectly preserved.

The Burley match was one of the last of its kind. Within five years Winchilsea's health was failing, his country-house cricket largely ceased, and the centre of gravity moved decisively to Lord's.