Country House Cricket at Watts House (Cedar Falls)

Watts House was owned by John Winter from 1873 and he was a hugely enthusiastic cricketer and it is very likely that the house would have been a venue for country house cricket from the very early days. Further information is to be found about John Winter in Barry Phillips’ book SC1882-1914 – player number 40. 

John Winter is of course the man that leased the CACG to SCCC and later sold it to the club. He was Hon Treasurer of SCCC in 1885 and gifted his majority shares in the Taunton Athletic Club (the original leaseholders of the CACG). He was clearly a major player in SCCC from the very beginning and a keen local cricketer who played regularly for Fullands School (where SCCC played matches before moving to the CACG) and for Taunton CC (he headed the batting averages in 1878). He would have almost certainly have held country house matches at Watts House from at least the late 1870s. There are no newspapers records of these private matches (at least not in the Taunton Courier but there may be in the SC Gazette (which hasn’t been verified because it is not on-line during this period).

John Winter, a notorious gambler and spendthrift was forced to give up Watts House in 1891. It was sold to a Major Banks from the North of England but occupied by a Major Wise until bought by Lt Col Sir Dennis Boles in c1902. Boles, sometime Taunton MP, was a keen cricketer, though not particularly useful. His wiki entry states:

Sir Dennis was also a cricketer,[1] and did much to popularise the Exmouth Club. He was a former president of Somerset County Cricket Club.

He definitely played matches at Watts House under the team names of Watts House CC or the Dennis Boles X1. The Somerset Stragglers were regular visitors to Watts House from the early 1900s. The first reference found in the Taunton Courier was for a match v Stragglers in August 1906. See attached clip. Plenty of Somerset Cricketer representation is also to be found here including Sam Woods.

The same match in 1908 had John Daniel and JC White playing for Stragglers and PR Johnson & WT Greswell playing for Watts House (see attached clip). Stragglers continued to use Watts House throughout the twenties and thirties e.g. in 1930 their fixture list included 2 matches (v Blandford and RMC Camberley). Watts House CC also played Taunton CC and Taunton Thursday X1 in August of that year. 

Dennis Boles died July 1935 and the estate passed to his second & only surviving son Gerald (eldest one killed WW1). Gerald may not have shared his father’s passion for the game but cricket continued after his father’s death including throughout WW2 e.g. 41st General Hospital v Rowbarton Brewery Aug 1941. Gerald Boles died in 1945, killed in WW2. 

Watts House CC did continue after WW2. The Taunton Courier refers to a match in 1947 as Wiveliscombe v Watts House and the only two players named were J. Conibere and F Lee, both SCCC cricketers. There is also a marvellous tribute to Dennis Boles written by H.J. Channon in 1949. He was a regular at Watts House country cricket matches. See attached note for his recollections.

There doesn’t seem to be much by way of cricket at Watts House after the 1940s and the house became a school in the early 1960s and much later a Health Spa. During CoVid it closed, unfortunately it did not reopen. Richard Smith (whose family bought it/rebuilt it in 1972) had plans to open it just as a wedding venue. Unfortunately Richard died a few months ago, and it is understood that the house is going through probate.