returned to play matches at Leyton in 1957, by then owned by the local council, and continued to play there until 1977, when Trevor Bailey described Leyton as “our ugliest ground… but it had a certain gnarled charm”. Charles Bray, who played for and captained Essex at Leyton, took a similar view of the ground in his history of the Essex club - "It certainly did not have beauty or charm....on a cheerless day it was a miserable place. Yet it had a character of its own and had been the stage for a great number of magnificent games." The ground is now used for National Cricket League matches during the season, and hosts teams including Waltham Forest Cricket Club. The wooden pavilion building still stands and has been a Grade II listed building since 1999. The site is protected by Fields in Trust through a legal "Deed of Dedication" safeguarding the future of the space as public recreation land for future generations to enjoy. In April 2017, former Essex and England captain Graham Gooch opened new cricket facilities at the Leyton ground, including outdoor cricket nets and a non-turf pitch (NTP). In 2019, it was announced that Waltham Forest Borough Council and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) were jointly investing £900,000 to improve the site for cricket use, part of the ECB’s South Asian Action Plan which aims to engage the British Asian community in the sport, as a result of which, a covered Urban Cricket Centre was opened at the ground in June 2019 by Graham Gooch. In 2021, Waltham Forest Borough Council announced a restoration plan for the pavilion after it appeared on the Heritage at Risk Register. Notable matches at Leyton Essex played their first county match at the Leyton ground on 15 and 16 June 1885 against Surrey. Surrey won by an innings, with Walter Read scoring 214. Essex were not a first-class county at the time and the match did not carry first-class status. The match appears to have justified Essex's adoption of the Leyton ground; in the magazine Cricket, Charles W. Alcock reported that "the Essex authorities were quite satisfied with the attendance". Essex were granted first-class status for the 1894 season and their inaugural first-class match was played at Leyton from 14 to 16 May 1894, against Leicestershire. The visitors won by 68 runs. For the 1895 season Essex were