Historic Melton: Digby House - home to royalty and a tennis ace

It has seen many a famous face over the years, including many royals and today it is a Grade II listed building occupied by Newton Fallowell Estate Agents.

In the 1880s it was a boys school used for both day pupils and boarders. The school year was split into 3 terms each of 13 weeks and cost 35 Guineas for ordinary subjects and laundry per annum for boarders. Daily boarders without laundry cost 18 guineas whilst day boys cost 10 guineas per annum.

In 1888, the house was taken over by Timothy Cattle, a well-known purchaser of high-class horses. After the Cattle family moved out in 1893, the next owners were Mr & Mrs H W Clarke who ran a grocery store in the Market Square. In 1905 saw another change of occupancy with Dr James Smyth and his family moving in.

Mrs Louisa Smyth’s father, Captain James S Watts R.N. died at Digby House in 1908. Prior to his retirement from the Royal Navy, he served as the Staff Captain on the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert during Queen Victoria’s reign.

During the Great War, Digby House became the home of Madame Delbovier, a Belgian lady who did quite a lot of fundraising for the Belgian soldiers. Whilst she was living there, she took in some special Belgian refugees, in the form of the children of the Belgian King Albert.

They were Prince Léopold, Duke of Brabant, Prince of Belgium, who became later the fourth King of the Belgians as King Leopold III; Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, Prince Regent of Belgium and their younger sister, Princess Marie-José, who later became the last Queen of Italy. The Royal siblings only stayed at Digby House for a short while until they moved to Oakham.

After the war, the Melton Branch of the Comrades of the Great War, the forerunner to today’s Royal British Legion launched an appeal to make Digby House their proposed club premises for their membership of 360+ ex-servicemen.

The Prince of Wales, who went on to become King Edward VIII was a regular guest at Digby House in the 1920’s especially when Violet, the Duchess of Westminster and Commander & Mrs Colin Buist lived there.

During the late 20s Mrs Hilda Wardell took up residence at Digby House and was joined by her new husband Julian Joseph “Lizzie” Lezard following their secret marriage at Melton Registry Office on the 24th April 1929.

Lizzie was from South Africa and took up tennis whilst studying at Cambridge University. In the early 1920s, he took part in several Wimbledon Grand Slam Singles championships and the Grand Slam Doubles as well as the mixed doubles of 1924, 1925 and 1926. In 1926, he also went to on to represent South Africa in their Davis Cup team.

During WW2, Lizzie served with the Army and as a Secret Agent (Codename Église) with the Special Operations Executive. Immediately after the war, Digby House was occupied by squatters and then in the early 1950s it was converted into residential accommodation with three separate flats. In the mid 60s the downstairs was converted into business accommodation with the Belvoir School of Motoring setting up their office there.