Bowled Over - the bowling greens of Britain

English Heritage summaries. 2007/2008

EH Project Number:	5260MAIN
Funded Unit:	Malavan Media

Aims and Objectives

The aims and objectives of the Bowled Over project are as follows:

a. To provide the first systematic survey of bowling greens as historic sporting landscapes
Bowls has been played in Britain since at least the C13, and during the C16 and C17 was the nation’s most popular sport (pace Sir Francis Drake 1588). Today there are around 600,000 active bowlers playing either the crown green code (predominantly in the north and Midlands) and flat green bowls (mainly in the south and Scotland). It is estimated that there are 10,000 greens in use in Britain today – down from an estimated total of 15,000 fifty years ago. Of these, two greens are thought to date back to the 13th century: the Chesterfield Bowling Club(1294) and the Southampton Bowling Club (1299). Hereford’s green is thought to date back to at least 1484. Many other clubs trace their origins to the C17 and C18. Thereafter, bowls underwent a new phase of expansion in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. There are greens in historic locations, such as Great Torrington, Devon (1645), Lewes, East Sussex (1653) and Levens Hall, Cumbria (1730); in the working class districts and leafy suburbs of most large conurbations, in market towns, coastal resorts and villages. It could be said that bowling greens are so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible. And yet, to date, although there have been numerous books on how to play the game, some of which contain brief summaries of the history of bowls, Bowled Over will be the first comprehensive study to identify and verify historic greens, and to evaluate their place in the British landscape. It will also be the first to apply rigorous professional analysis of the numerous unsubstantiated histories that inhabit the game’s collective folklore.

b. To inform and educate policymakers and organisations concerned with the conservation, maintenance and future use of historic bowling greens.
Because of their location, bowling greens, perhaps more than any other open spaces used for sport, are exceptionally vulnerable to pressure from developers. Yet from a social, recreational and environmental point of view they provide valuable green space for healthy activity in a non-commercial
setting. Bowled Over aims to highlight the importance of bowling greens both in their historic and social context and to assess the issues concerning their conservation.

c. To increase public awareness of the value of bowls and bowling greens
Bowls predates cricket and football as Britain’s national game and yet most people know little about it beyond a few well worn and often patronising portrayals of it as a sport for predominantly elderly, white suburbanites. Bowled Over will seek to identify clubs where positive steps have been taken to save historic greens and encourage wider participation. It will also study the threat to historic greens and pavilions posed by the increasing use of artificial playing surfaces and by unsympathetic renovation work.

This page was published on 22/11/2007

Progress April 2008
Further to the progress report submitted in January 2008, research and field trips continue with a schedule
of photography planned for summer 2008.
Subject to further discussions with English Heritage publications, the timetable remains as per the original
Project Design, that is the research and writing tasks identified will be completed by October 2008, to
allow publication in April 2009.

This page was updated on 16/05/2008