IN PICTURES - Stanwick Bowls Club celebrates 100th anniversary in 2023

Stanwick Bowls Club is celebrating 100 years of existence in 2023, with a decorated history that started with a few locals who began playing bowls on the front rectory lawn.

To celebrate the anniversary, the club is hosting a handful of activities and events, including a visit from the Year Six pupils of Stanwick Primary School on June 13, a centenary gala on July 28, and a Big Bowls weekend May 27 and 28, giving people the opportunity to try the sport for the first time.

A statement on the club’s website said: “2023 will see our club celebrate its centenary. We are confident that with the continued support of members and the wider community, our club will continue to flourish and provide fun and competitive bowls and be a credit to our village.

"Our club has gone from strength to strength over recent years to develop into being amongst the best in our region. We now have a very respectable playing surface together with comfortable pavilion facilities and reasonably secure storage space for all our equipment.”

The club began in 1923, and in 1929 the first dedicated green was laid in the village, being ready for use in 1930.

The outfit formally adopted the name ‘Stanwick Bowls Club’ in 1954, and since then has been a fixture of the village’s amateur sports offerings, with a new pavilion being constructed in 1988, and more facilities being made available as the years have gone on.

A world war and a global pandemic have been successfully weathered by Stanwick Bowls Club, and it is still going strong as it reaches 100-years-old.

Looking to the future, the club is eager to encourage more people to take up bowls.

Communications secretary Neil Cartwright said: “It’s a really sociable event, it’s friendly, but we all like to win as well.

"It’s a good thing to get people out of the house.”

During coronation weekend on May 8, the club will also be open to non-members in the hope of bringing in new players.

But that’s enough about what’s to come, let’s instead take a trip down memory lane, with photos of Stanwick Bowls Club through the decades.

If you recognise any of the people pictured here or any of the images brings back happy memories, contact us at [email protected].