First Centuries at the New Lord's — Ladbroke 116 and Woodbridge 107, 24-25 August 1815

The new Lord's had hosted its inaugural match in June 1814. Through the rest of that season and the early part of 1815 the pitch produced low-scoring matches characteristic of the period. By August 1815 the surface had matured.

Middlesex v Epsom was scheduled as one of six senior matches of the post-Waterloo recovery summer. Both sides were captained by gentleman amateurs of moderate prominence. The fixture was advertised in the Morning Post for one shilling entry.

Centuries in 1815 were rare. In all the cricket of the underarm era a hundred was an event, and centuries on Lord's grounds had been counted in single figures for decades. The new pitch at St John's Wood, however, had been laid down with care over the winter of 1813-14, and by August 1815 it had bedded down. Middlesex v Epsom was a low-key fixture between county-strength sides organised largely around the Surrey gentleman amateurs of the south London cricket clubs. Felix Ladbroke (1788-1869), a Surrey banker and member of MCC, and Frederick Woodbridge, a less prominent Epsom amateur, opened together for Epsom on 24 August. They put on a substantial partnership, with Ladbroke reaching 116 and Woodbridge 107. Both centuries were achieved in the same innings — only the second instance in cricket history of two batsmen from the same side scoring hundreds in the same innings, after a similar feat at Lord's old ground in the 1790s. Epsom won the match. The specific scoresheets are preserved in MCC records and were the subject of a Wisden retrospective in the 1880s.

Lambert's twin centuries for Sussex v Epsom in July 1817 — the first two centuries by a single batsman in a match — followed only two years later, on the same ground. The Lord's pitch had become the standard against which big scores were measured.