In 1845, Daniel Day moved from the Antelope Ground at the Woolston Hotel on the south side of Woolston Road, Itchen, only a few hundred yards across the river from Southampton. He converted the field on the East side of the Hotel into a cricket ground and the first match staged on the ground was in April 1846 when Married of Southampton played the Single. A pavilion was built on the north side of the ground, the size of the ground being about 6 acres. The lease of the hotel ran out in 1851 and Day, who claimed he had spent between £1,000 and £1,200 on cricket, decided the ground was not viable and moved to Southsea to manage the East Hampshire Ground there. Day's ground at Itchen was built over in the 1850s. The Woolston Hotel changed its name to the Railway Hotel in the 1870s, but since the Second World War it has been known as the Huntsman.