Named after C18th. local lawyer, diarist and Lord of the Manor, The William Bray celebrates a recently discovered claim to fame for the Shere writer concerning the great American pastime, baseball.

Baseball invented in England?

Local historians in Surrey have confirmed evidence that ‘Base Ball’ was played in Britain more than 20 years before American Independence. More usually attributed to Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, published 1817, William Bray’s diary has now been accredited as the first mention of a game of ‘Base Ball’, played in Guildford by men and women on Easter Monday, March 31st 1755 – some 50 years earlier.

William Bray’s diary entry is now part of an exhibition at Lord’s Cricket Club in London, “Swinging Away: How Cricket and Baseball Connect”. Running through December, the exhibition transfers next Spring to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at Cooperstown in New York.

As the first bar and restaurant venture for ex-Formula One racing driver, Julian Bailey, The William Bray also has a distinct flavour of British sporting prowess, brought alive through original photographs and memorabilia gathered from his time on the circuit.