📍Downend, South Gloucestershire BS16, UK
1850 – 1868“I grew up at Downend, near Bristol, then a rural village, the eighth of nine children of Henry Mills Grace, the village doctor, and his wife, Martha. When I was two we moved to a nearby house called The Chestnuts, and it remained our family home for the rest of our lives. My father was cricket-mad, and in the orchard behind the house he and the older boys cleared and rolled a practice pitch, where every member of the family played, morning and evening, all summer long. My mother, Martha, was a tall, strong and formidable woman who knew the game as well as any man. She watched our practice and told us sharply when we played a careless stroke, and she wrote to cricket authorities to recommend her sons. My uncle, Alfred Pocock, was our patient coach, teaching me to play straight and defend before I attacked. Even the family dogs were trained to field the balls. My older brother Edward, known as E.M., was already a famous cricketer, and my younger brother Fred would play for England too. I played my first matches for the local Downend and West Gloucestershire clubs as a boy, and by my teens I was playing against England's best. I trained as a doctor like my father, and for years I practised medicine among the poor of Bristol while also becoming the most famous cricketer in the world, scoring more runs and taking more wickets than anyone of my time. I helped found Gloucestershire County Cricket Club. But it all began in that orchard at Downend.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today