Description

1897. Little-altered, single-storey, 6-bay, timber bowling pavilion with gabled entrance. Base course, cill courses. Horizontal and diagonal boarding; weatherboard to side elevations. Broad eaves. Central part-glazed 2-leaf entrance doors with barge-boarded finialled gable above. Distinctive, round-arched window openings.

4-light plate glass with round-arched details above and timber glazing bars; windows slide between timber linings to open. Piended roof with red ridge brattishing and finials.

INTERIOR: (seen 2013). Timber lined with original shelving and seating.

Statement of Interest

This is a rare example of a decorative timber bowling pavilion with little external or internal alteration. Dating from 1897, it is situated overlooking the bowling green, on its north eastern edge. The decorative round-arched windows and the red ridge tiles add to the character of the building. Internally, the building is notable for its near intact timber lining and retained benches and storage racks.

Lawn bowls today is a hugely popular sport in Scotland. It has a long and distinguished history with the earliest reference to the game in Scotland appearing in 1469, when James IV played a variation of the game referred to as 'lang bowlis' at St Andrews in Fife. The first public bowling green in Scotland was laid out in 1669 at Haddington, near Edinburgh, however it was not until 1864 that the rules of the modern game were committed to writing by William Mitchell of Glasgow in his Manual of Bowl-Playing. Machine manufactured standard bowls were invented by Thomas Taylor Ltd, also of Glasgow, in 1871 and the Scottish Bowling Association was formed in 1892. Today there are around 900 clubs in Scotland with an estimated 90,000 active lawn bowls players.

List description updated as part of the sporting buildings thematic study (2012-13).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17847253

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)