About Muswell Hill Bowls Club

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In the year 1896, Muswell Hill was to change dramatically. Until then it had been a rural Middlesex village dominated by about a dozen large private estates, each with its own detached house and outbuildings. Their occupants had done well professionally or commercially and often regarded their Muswell Hill estate as their country residence. North Bank in Pages Lane is a surviving example of such an estate and so is Grove Lodge on the side of Muswell Hill. 

With the opening of Alexandra Palace in 1873, Muswell Hill had gained a railway station and a steam train service to Kings Cross, but this had not led to much housing development. In the 1880s Muswell Road and Muswell Avenue were laid out east of Colney Hatch Lane and houses began to be built in this area, following the sale of some estate land by the company owning Alexandra Palace and Park, but the building and occupation of houses here was slow. 

The death of James Hall Renton in 1895 was the catalyst from which changes stemmed. This prosperous stockbroker who lived in Park Lane, overlooking Hyde Park, owned about 30 acres of fairly flat land in the centre of Muswell Hill. On it stood The Limes and Fortis House, two ancient mansions whose grounds occupied the area between Colney Hatch Lane and Fortis Green Road, extending up into Tetherdown. Part of this land Renton used as a stud farm. Following his death, the land was sold by his heirs and in April 1896 was purchased by James Edmondson. The son of a former Cumberland farmer who had set up a building business in Islington, Edmondson was to become an important developer building suburban houses from Golders Green to Winchmore Hill. 

Edmondson set about turning Muswell Hill from a village into a middle class suburban centre. Around the thirty acres he built the residential shopping parades and across them he laid out Queens Avenue and Princes Avenue with their large terraced houses. Muswell Hill lost its rural attraction for the other residents and Edmondson acquired Hillfield, adjacent to St James's Lane, The Elms, Wellfield and North Lodge to expand his suburb. Another principal developer, William Jefferies Collins, acquired the Fortismere and Firs estate on the west side of Fortis Green and laid out Grand Avenue and associated avenues across it. Other builders built elsewhere in the suburb. 

Muswell Hill Bowling Club was to be one of the facilities helping to make the new suburb into a viable community which Edmondson assisted to become into being. He did this in an often generous way. For example, he gave the sites for the Congregational church in Queens Avenue (now United Reformed), and for the Baptist church in Dukes Avenue, as well as giving good terms for the former Presbyterian church in the Broadway. He gave sites for a fire station and a library and provided the concert hall building called the Athenaeum in Fortis Green Road (replaced in 1966 by the Sainsbury building). 

The availability of the bowling club site was due to James Edmondson. On 5 November 1900 he granted a 21 year lease at £50 a year to three gentlemen who lived near each other in Queens Avenue: Alan Wildsmith, John William Fletcher Ford and Joseph Edward Hounam. These lessees represented the future club. The deed describes the lane as abutting the gardens of Nos 42-50 Queens Avenue (175 feet), Kings Avenue (147 feet 3 inches) and Tetherdown (162 feet). Access was granted along a footway from Kings Avenue. This area had once been part of an estate at the southern end of Tetherdown called Fortis Lodge. It had been bought by James Renton in 1876 and added to his larger estate, with which it was contiguous. 

The irregular rectangle of land formed back land to the new residential houses and was a perfect site for the gentle game of Bowls (which does not attract the fervour and noisy followers of other sports). Two years later, on 18th November 1902, Edmondson conveyed the leasehold land to the three lessees for £600 - the sale included the pavilion. The deed covenanted that no building more than one storey high was to be erected and that the land was not to be used for any other purpose than as a bowling green, tennis club or cricket ground, or nursery or nursery garden, without the express consent of the vendor. Edmondson was surely right in making this provision, for the value of his fine leasehold properties in Queens Avenue (now locally listed and in a conservation area) might be depressed by unacceptable development of this back land, a point which is still valid. 

It is interesting that Muswell Hill should acquire a Bowling Green, for it had a forerunner in the seventeenth century. The then owner of The Limes estate, Sir Thomas Rowe, was in 1663 granted by Hornsey manor court the ownership of a parcel of waste land for the recreation of the tenants of the manor 'and of the gentlemen who should contribute to the work and expense of a Bowling Green.' This green seems to have stood where No 188 Muswell Hill Broadway (Brocklehurst's furniture shop) is today. The Manor Court rolls make a further reference to the 'Former’ bowling green in 1765, by which time it had gone; by 1816 it was the site of a cottage and garden. 

Bowls of course has a long history. The Southampton Bowling Club was founded in 1699 but its history is earlier than this and the tradition of Drake playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe at the time of the Armada is well founded. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the game had fallen into disrepute, being associated with pothouses, drunkenness and gambling. The Scots rescued it with new greens and rules. Bowls Associations began to be formed in the late nineteenth century, including London and the Southern Counties in 1896, the year Edmondson bought the Muswell Hill property. The development of bowls was all part of the Victorian revival of sports and games on an organised basis, with the creation of leagues and associations for not only bowls, but also tennis, football, cricket and other sports. This well organised movement, providing legitimate sporting outlets for the expanding population of the country, helped save acres of open land from being built over; we still enjoy these green spaces today, even though in recent years they have yielded to supermarket developers and others; preservation of bowling greens, tennis courts and playing fields is important to our heritage.

Muswell Hill Bowls Club, founded in 1901 and a benefit to the Edwardian suburb then being built, survives more than a hundred years later and a debt is due to all those who created it. The following pages tell in detail who they were and how they set about the task.

Over the hundred years of its existence, it is difficult to assess exactly how many playing members have benefited from it. The archives of the Club are not very good, which contributes to the difficulty. The length of time of membership is also very variable - from just one year to 20 years or more. We know that there are 80 signatures on the deeds and must assume these men were all playing members of the newly formed club. The membership must have fluctuated (as it still does), more so during World War I. In 1935 the ladies section was formed and from that time the total membership was limited to 100. Undoubtedly there would have been seasons when that number was reached, or nearly so. Again, the Second World War would have seen a decline. The post war boom, and particularly the reduction in working hours, saw a resurgence and numbers remained at the 80-90 mark until decline began about 10 years ago [through the 1990s]. Numbers then began to fall, recruitment fell off and this situation obtains at the present day. If the formula is used of an average five new members per year -plus the original -and round this off to 600 playing members and add about 150 non playing members, that gives a total of about 750.

Through the Committee the Club manages a strong match fixture list, a comprehensive competition programme and entry of members into outside competitions. Over the years, a respectable collection of silverware has accumulated thanks to donations by members. The club also runs social events and conducts fund raising and recruitment functions.

Originally, the ladies section was formed under sufferance from the men, they paid a lower subscription, their numbers were limited to 25 and there were many restrictions as to when they could play. Needless to say, this was a constant source of friction. The situation remained the same for many years until 1988 when the directors decided that in the age of sexual equality the ladies would be entitled to full and equal membership with the men, would pay the same subscription, would become shareholders and would be eligible to become President, Vice President, Secretary or Treasurer of the Club and a director of the Company.

Vera Passingham was approved a director in 1981 and was succeeded by Liz Baker in 1992. The first lady President was Pat Hicks, who was elected in 1999, then Vice President Sylvia Eldridge.

In 1904 a 30-year old Scot who had moved to London in furtherance of his commercial career and taken up residence in Muswell Hill, formed the Club. In 1905 he entered the Middlesex County BAs single handed competition which he won. This win entitled him to play for the first ever single handed championship of England which he went on to win. This win earned him a permanent place in the history of the English game and marked the start of a playing career which can only be described as phenomenal and which saw him become probably the best player in England, particularly in the period between the wars. His name was James Gillespie Carruthers.

In the clubhouse there is a framed record of Chief Events which he won, this lists 47 different items. He won the Middlesex Singles again in 1913 and was runner up in the England single handed competition in that year. For nineteen separate seasons between 1905 and 1939 he played for England international outdoor teams and indoor international teams twice. He won the Club single handed competitions nineteen times, the first in 1911 and the last in 1953. The lustre that the 54 years of his membership gave to the Club which was only 3 years old when he started, was incredible and crucial to its development and survival, and lasted for the rest of his life. When he died in 1958, the Club instituted an annual memorial fixture to which six neighbouring Clubs were invited to play for a trophy, called the Carruthers Shield, which was specially commissioned and this was played every year until 2010.

During the middle twenties, a young teenage lad was observed regularly standing at the bottom of the garden of the house overlooking the green in Queens Avenue where he lived, showing an intense interest in the game. Eventually this came to the notice of Jimmy Carruthers who asked the lad if he would like to come round and have a go, to which the lad readily agreed. It was quickly obvious to Jimmy that the lad had a natural aptitude for the game and he and several other members managed to persuade the committee to allow him to become a member. His name was Jackie Pilbrow, and he developed into a very good player thanks to Jimmy's tutelage. He led for Jimmy in many pairs competitions over the years and was selected for Middlesex and eventually made the England international outdoor teams for 1938 and 1939.  After the war he moved to Surrey for whom he played many times.

For the ordinary playing member, the winning of the Club singles championship of a County or other association outside competition, or to play for the County, is regarded as a considerable achievement. Margaret Boucher and Betty Holloway won the Middlesex County Women's BA pairs championship in 1981. Eunice Dawe MBE has won the Club ladies championship more times than anyone else, a total of 5 so far. She has also played for the County. The Club's 1974 summer tour went to Ramsgate, the Kent seaside resort. During one of their matches on a green near the sea, a holidaying visitor took great interest in the progress of the game. Imagine his surprise when he learned that one of the teams he was watching came from a location very near to his own home at Bounds Green. Contact having been made it was suggested to him that he visit the Club to try his hand at the game, to which he acquiesced. The rest as they say is history, for the onlooker was Danny O'Shea. His manual skills already being well honed as a builder, these combined with a willingness to learn, a propensity to practice and a strong desire to win, quickly made Danny into a very good player. Deciding to play in the winter indoors at the Mansfield IBC he soon caught the eye of Middlesex selectors, resulting in his selection for the Liberty Trophy Team. Once his skills were recognised by the County selectors, he was picked for the Middleton Cup team for which he was accredited as a Muswell Hill player. He played in both teams for six seasons. He also won the Club Mens Singles eleven times.