Derby Arboretum Bowls Club: Arboretum Bowls Club decides to jack it in after a run of 144 years

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The Arboretum Bowls Club has been a popular venue for generations of Derby sportsmen across three centuries. Now, sadly, it is to close and the handful of members left have been reminiscing and looking back over its glorious past.

Arboretum Bowls Club members

ONE of Derby’s oldest bowls club, whose members used to wear top hats to play while the ball boys donned bowlers, is closing.

It was 1862, when the American Civil War was in full swing and the last public hanging took place in Derby, that a peaceful, green corner of Rosehill Street became home to the exclusive new sporting venue, Derby Arboretum Bowling Club.

For 144 years, members have played on the large crown green but, in recent years, an aging and dwindling membership, and a change in the way people spend their leisure time, has caused current members to decide it is time to call it a day.

Chairman and former president, Maurice Coates of Elvaston, who joined the club in 1954 and is the longest surviving member, said: “Of course, it’s very sad, but we knew it would eventually happen.

“This club has been going for 144 years and for a long time the membership was very exclusive to aldermen and councillors on the town council. Today, much has changed and those of us left come from all sorts of backgrounds. Many people live further out of town and, inevitably, older members eventually pass on. We have been very lucky to go on for so long.”

Although members still occasionally play there, the green is no longer in the pristine condition it used to be.

It is owned by Derby City Council, which is understood to want it to continue to be used for some sort of leisure activity. The pavilion, that still has display boards bearing the names and photographs of officers and prize- winners from the very first day it opened, is owned by the club, who hope to sell it.

Committee member Dennis Burrows said: “Practical things like rent, gas, electricity, water and insurance take their toll. We really only have about 25 members now and sometimes just a few of us are there at any one time.

“But we do have a good social side with snooker and playing cards, and people are very friendly. Some of the older ones are naturally very sad it will all come to an end.”

The Arboretum park, next door, opened in 1840 and was given to the town by Joseph Strutt, the local cotton mill owner and first mayor of the new borough of Derby. It was said to be Britain’s first public park.

Twenty-two years later, when the town council set up the bowling club, it was marked by a huge fun day which attracted a crowd of 16,000, who were entertained by the ascent of a giant balloon, a parachute drop from 1,000 feet and a concert by Derby Glee and Madrigal Society.

And to get the proceedings under way, there were fanfares from the Band of the Coldstream Guards and the Midlands Railway Band, while the first Derbyshire Militia and the Chesterfield Volunteer Rifles, were strutting their stuff.

It was certainly a club opening with some style, though it was not for the likes of everyone. Its membership was only open to members of Derby Town Council and the Arboretum committee, though, by the 1920s, others were welcomed. But even then, it was only businessmen and the local heirarchy.

Playing on one of the largest greens in the country at the time was something only the very rich or well connected were able to enjoy – and then, only if they were male.

Players could take along their wives, mothers and sisters to the club but only to sit, watch and do their knitting!

However, an exception was made once a year when women could turn up and play together and be served strawberries and ice-cream by the men.

Later, the club widened its membership to include others, but it was still another hundred years before women were accepted as full members in their own right as late as 1998.

Dorothy Worth, of Shelton Lock, whose late husband Bill was president of the club on three occasions, made history in 1999 when she became the first female president.

“I suppose it was quite a breakthrough really. The ladies have always given their full support to members and lots of them enjoyed playing. They may not have become full members until so late, but I think they were always greatly appreciated for what they did in the background,” she said.

Over the years, an occasional woman would apply for membership but the club’s rule that the whole committee had to be in support meant none of them were successful until the late 1990s.

One of the best known “rejects” was the well-known and respected Derby councillor, Mrs Edith Wood, who went on to become Mayor of Derby. When she applied for membership she was blackballed by one disapproving member of the committee, much to the embarrassment of his colleagues.

The club has always offered a full bar service and, in the old days, it offered alcohol at discount prices. An old menu shows the days when brandy was 11d (nearly 5p) a glass, whisky and gin 8d, cigars 4d each, cigarettes 11d for 20 and Worthington beer 4d a pint.

Structurally, apart from the building of a car park, little at the club has changed since before the turn of the last century. In 1894, a pavilion consisting of three old Midland Railway signal boxes, was erected for £80, and remained the clubhouse until a new one was built in 1926.

The club has withstood a 1942 German bomb attack and a devastating fire in 1973. The present pavilion was the result of the voluntary efforts of members and opened later that year.

In recent times, the day- to-day running of the club and covering of expenses has depended on the fundraising activities of members who have held raffles, whist drives, snooker matches and other events.

But as the number of life members, previously the backbone of the club, decreased and with the change in people’s leisure time activities, it became obvious that it was time to pick up the jack and pack it away for another day.

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