ON THE BOWLING GREEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 18, 20 January 1913, Page 7

ON THE BOWLING GREEN.

DRAKE’S BOWLS.. Unique Collection of Woods to be Shown. Bowlers in the North of England are to have the opportunity of inspecting what must be the most un.que collection of bowls extant. The bonis, which are the property of Captain Bagot, M.P., of Levens Hall, Westmorland, have been believed in some quarters to include the historical pail of woods with which Sir Francis Brake was playing on Plymouth Hoe on July 19,' 1588, when the Spanish Armada was sighted.

This, baptain Bagot himself thinks, may be a myth, but there is at the same time indisputable evidence of some of the bowls being in existence, at all events some ninety years later, if not before that.

There are, a dozen or more bow!a in the collection, and they have up to a few years ago been in use on the bowling green at Levens Hall since .he year 1685, and there is very little doubt, even on an earlier date than that. This in itself makes the collection one without a parallel, as piobably no other bowls in England can be said for a certainty to have been so long in use on the same green. Family Crest. The bowls are now mounted and preserved in the hall at Captain Bagot’s Westmoreland residence, along with a brass plate giving particulars of their history. They all bear the crest of the Bellingham family, although it is now very difficult to discern on most of them, and as the Bellinghams sold the Levens Hall estate in 1685, the history of the bowls must date from before that time. ‘‘One pair of the'bowls'are'inscribed with the initials of Colonel Grehme, 'M.P., who purchased the Levens property from the Bellinghams. He was connected with Carlisle, and is understood to be the gentleman who presented the silver mace to the Corporation of that city. Another pair bear the monogram of Lord Thanet, who was Lord-Lieutenant about 1700. The bowls are to be exhibited at the bazaar of the Courtfield (Carlisle) Bowling Club—The ‘Manchester Daily Dispatch.

A BRITISH TEAM FOR AUSTRALIA. “What the International Bowling Board has to do, in the first place, is to resolve to send out to Australia a team in the early autumn of 1014,” says “Jack High” in the ‘Field.” “Ti: it goes through the usual preliminary of circularising clubs to ascertain whether any of their members, and if so how many, will join the team, much time will be cut to waste, and the invitation will be barren. The bowlers of high quality who could afford to go are some of them already known, and the rest will respond to personal appeal; so that it should be easy enough to approach the light men t the right time and in the right spirit. It is hard to say what is the number of level-green bowlers who are members of accredited clubs, but in 1910 Air. Samuel Ferguson, the then president of the Scottish 8.A., assured the Lord Mayor of Belfast that he was entitled to speak in the name of 50,000 bowlers. If we add a similar number for the res>t of the Ini ted Kingdom, I am confident that so vast a constituency will readily yield two dozen high-class bowlers and sportsmen of sufficient means and leisure to enable the Board to announce that a

return visit is, speaking humanly, an absolute certainty.”