Talk:Bowls

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You can talk about this sport that is played on a lawn, maybe find a compromise to the edit war ? Slowart (talk) 02:41, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There isn't an edit war - there is a history of petty vandalism that is cleaned up as it is found. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 02:55, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Whether bowls is a sport is debatable, but it is undoubtedly a lawn game, the change from 'sport to 'lawn game' should remain. 82.153.127.229 (talk) 15:22, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * "Whether bowls is a sport is debatable" No it isn't "it is undoubtedly a lawn game" No it isn't "the change from 'sport to 'lawn game' should remain" No, it shouldn't. Three strikes there. -- Mattinbgn (talk)

Who do you think you are, to be making such judgements?21:50, 4 April 2012 (UTC)Alley baba (talk) 12:08, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * A 'sport' is all forms of competitive physical activity. A 'lawn game' is any outdoor game that can be played on a lawn. So it's both right ? Slowart (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There are some options, if the edit war continues. For starters we can ask that the page be semi-protected so that only autoconfirmed_users can edit. That would mean you need an account to edit the page, no more anonymous editing. Slowart (talk) 16:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Bowls is not played on lawn but on sports turf. In New Zealand it's not even played on grass but cotula, a dense low-growing weed. We neeed to get with the modern terminology here. At the end of the day bowls is a sport because World Bowls say it's a sport as in the foundation document "Laws of the Sport of Bowls". Xtie (talk) 21:03, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree Xtie and I'm asking that anonymous users be blocked from editing. I think the undo button is getting worn out.Slowart (talk) 00:25, 15 April 2012 (UTC)


 * There is at least one source for "lawn game" -, and one for "sport" - . I don't think it needs to be either-or, it can be both. And all disputes over content should be referred to reliable sources rather than the opinions of Wikipedia editors. This article is lacking sources, even though there are plenty of books on the subject.  SilkTork  ✔Tea time  23:27, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it can't. The term "Lawn game" presupposes a non-competitive pastime rather than a competitive sport - which it is at all levels. The overwhelming weight of sources suggest bowls is a sport. We are indulging an IP whose aim to have the term "lawn game" in the article to mock the claims of bowls to be considered a sport. He/she is a troll and a vandal and you are basically indulging him/her by giving his/her argument any credence whatsoever. WP:RBI is how this should be dealt with. Your red herring about the lack of sources for the article is irrelevant. Feel free to remove any unsourced content you wish - bowls will still remain a sport. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 09:14, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

 SilkTork  ✔Tea time  23:02, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Sadly croquet is now dealing with this nonsense. Xtie (talk) 22:38, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 14 July 2012
Please replace:

The exercise is then repeated for the next end, a game of bowls typically being of twenty one ends

with:

The exercise is then repeated for the next end, a game of bowls typically finishing when a player or team has scored twenty one points.

Additional: There is actually no limit to the number of ends that may be played in a game, only a target number of points to achieve to win the game.

DaveHornby (talk) 19:02, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * ❌ After a few more edits you can change it yourself.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

uneven?
played on a pitch which may be flat (for "flat-green bowls") or convex or uneven. What is the nature of the unevenness? - clarification needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.85.36.229 (talk) 07:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

a crown green bowling green is supposed to be a surface which rises up from the outer edges to a 'crown' in the middle. Most of the crown greens have lumps and bumps (swillies) in their make up which make the play trickier, these are down to the natural 'settling' of the surface.

DeeGee58 (talk) 13:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 30 August 2012
Hi my name is Debbie Smith. YOU have in your archive that Charmain Smith won one gold medal and one silver medal in 1976 Toronto Olympiad lawns bowls for visually impaired. You need to make to corrections to your information. It is Clare Smith(my mother) and she won 2 gold medals. 1 in singles and 1 in pairs. I can confirm this information. I would appreciate it if you would please correct this information. Yours sincerely Debbie Smith.

101.178.174.28 (talk) 11:08, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: If you can "confirm this information", why don't you do it now with a reliable source? A boat   that can float!  (watch me float!)  12:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

edit request
Please add to the see also section
 * Disabled lawn bowls player classification

-- 70.24.247.121 (talk) 07:56, 6 October 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ — Dianna (talk) 17:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Name of Sport on Wikipedia
Is there any background/history as to the naming of this sport as Bowls on Wikipedia as compared to Lawn Bowls or Lawn Bowling? As a person new to Wikepedia searching and editing, it appears that the hierarchy stems from Bowling to the variants including Bowls (Lawn Bowling), ten pin bowling etc. and it may have been clearer if the distinction existed on pages referring to Lawn Bowls/Lawn Bowling. MasterTTFV (talk) 05:23, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I might have expected to see "Lawn bowls" used as the title. It maybe seems that little bit more correct. But "Bowls" is a unique name for the sport anyway. Perhaps now that so many bowling greens are synthetic, the use of "Lawn" has become inappropriate. "Tennis" used to be "lawn tennis", but very little is played on grass these days, and we all accept "Tennis" as the name. I've never heard the sport called "Lawn bowling". HiLo48 (talk) 07:00, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The sport is called, simply "bowls". That is what the World Bowls Board calls it, that is its name. I know Wikipedia has a habit of ignoring the views of peak bodies on what they call their sport. Let's not make the same mistake here. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 07:16, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. HiLo48 (talk) 07:29, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the responses. There are redirects in place from lawn bowls so I can see how it makes sense to use Bowls.  Perhaps a Bowls Wikiproject could be set up to help consolidate existing pages and provide a structure for ongoing bowls articles on Wikipedia. MasterTTFV (talk) 01:00, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Theoretically this topic comes under the bowling project but that project seems to be focussed on ten pin bowling. Hack (talk) 01:39, 16 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes. Too much difference between the sports methinks. Very few people will be interested in both. HiLo48 (talk) 02:29, 16 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I doubt there is enough interest to sustain a project but it couldn't hurt to ask. Hack (talk) 08:00, 16 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with keeping Bowls as the name of the Sport, and separating it from 'Bowling' (as in 10-pin Bowling). Many fundamental differences exist. However within Bowls, I think there need to be some sub-categories to reflect the multiple different variants. There are at least 4 different variants administered by separate governing bodies. Each variant has different equipment, bowls surface specifications, rules and geographic spread. Even whether they are played indoor or outdoors. I will try to work on this as it will mean an overhaul of the existing article. There is some commonality in history. Scootermacc (talk) 21:42, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Separate articles for the separate Bowls codes
Further to my comment in the 'Name of the Sport' discussion, I believe this article needs separate articles for each 'code' of Bowls in the same way that the rugby football article refers to the separate codes of rugby union and rugby league. I will start with 3 new articles for the following codes, including links to their governing bodies: lawn bowls (also known as flat-green bowls), crown green bowls and indoor bowls. I found there is an existing article on short-mat bowls that will be included to then refer to 4 'codes'. So, most of the information on the current Bowls article is relevant only to the 'Lawn Bowls' code - specifically in reference to the bowling surface, rules and equipment. I plan to move a lot of this to a dedicated Lawn Bowls article. The existing History section is probably common to all codes but could be embellished. Bear with me, I am new here and this will take a bit of time! I'm also raising it here because I see that searching on Lawn Bowls on wikipedia already forwards to this Bowls page and I am not sure how to change that! Scootermacc (talk) 22:07, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * To me, there's a fundamental issue with having an article called "Lawn bowls". Today the game is really called, simply, bowls. These days the game is very often played on a range of surfaces that aren't lawn. The world association is simply called World Bowls. It's gone the way of tennis, which was called lawn tennis when I was very young, but not now. Maybe this article can become the article explicitly for that form of the game, with other articles having more descriptive names. HiLo48 (talk) 23:16, 4 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your feelings and appreciate that World Bowls refer to the sport simply as 'Bowls'. However the national governing body for the sport in England states this on their website: "Bowls England is the National Governing Body (NGB) for the sport of Flat Green Lawn Bowls in England." It also states this: "World Bowls is the World Governing Body for the sport of flat green outdoor bowls. It currently has 53 Member National Authorities (including Bowls England). World Bowls is responsible for the development of the sport of flat green outdoor bowls across the globe, and produces the Laws of the Sport of Bowls on behalf of its Member National Authorities." I'm not sure the comparison to tennis is a fair comparison. Whether you play tennis on grass, artificial surface or clay the rules are the same. That is not the case with Bowls. To use the generic term Bowls as the name for 'lawn bowls' on Wikipedia suggests there is only 1 Bowls code/variant, and in my view that undermines the other codes' validity. I feel it would be best represented to have a 'lawn bowls' titled page and in the first sentence state "Lawn Bowls also known as Flat-green bowls, and more recently referred to simply as 'Bowls', is..." We can then cite the traditional naming and the more recent change adopted by World Bowls without affecting the other Bowls code's pages. Either way I think it's important each code has it's own dedicated page, and we have a general Bowls page much like the 'Football' Wikipedia page which can explain the history and how we ended up with the Bowls codes (and their names) that we have today. Scootermacc (talk) 19:53, 7 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, having dedicated pages for each code is important, but Lawn Bowls is simply wrong in most of the world. It might be the historic name, but it's not the common one now. "Flat green outdoor bowls" is gruesome, never used as a common name, and probably inaccurate. (I'll bet someone has an indoor centre somewhere.) HiLo48 (talk) 22:02, 7 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I can't disagree with your views on the name, but have no answer to that other than the suggestion above.

Scootermacc (talk) 20:25, 8 September 2014 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth: Tennis was formally known for centuries as "lawn tennis" (at first to distinguish it from the now-rare sport of royal (court) tennis).  Even in my childhood, the U.S. governing body for it was USLTA, the United States Lawn Tennis Association.  Finally they realized that it was no longer necessary, or even appropriate, to keep the word "lawn" in the name of the organization, or the sport itself for that matter.  I would suggest that this is about the point at which "bowls" has now arrived. In other words, HiLo48 has it exactly right.  2600:1004:B152:7609:A592:C778:907C:634 (talk) 23:48, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 21 November 2019
Hi all,

please consider the following citation. I believe this should cover the point

Add citation for "This makes it particularly appropriate for small communities as it can be played in village halls, schools, sports and social clubs."

77.98.9.134 (talk) 12:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
 * That is a self-published blog, so it's not a good source to use. If you could point to a published book or a newspaper article about it, that would be ideal. – Thjarkur (talk) 13:08, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Edit request on 1 December 2021
There is a typo in the Scoring section where it says: but should say:
 * best-or-three
 * best-of-three — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottharden (talk • contribs) 19:45, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Fixed. HiLo48 (talk) 05:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

In popular Culture
In the Popular culture section, bowls was prominent in the BBC's Father Brown 'the devil you know' episode 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.133.12.147 (talk) 21:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Game
The "Game" section is very poorly written and refers to many unexplained technical terms 27.125.159.118 (talk) 13:56, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2022
Hello! In the section "In Popular Culture", you could mention the episode of the series "Heartbeat" called "Off The Rails" (S14E20). Bowls is the secondary lighter plot here, but is prominently featured in the Heartbeat way. -Steve B./ Canada 2607:FEA8:C31F:F3B4:7C8B:2B17:30F7:F97D (talk) 00:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Please provide independent, secondary sources to demonstrate that this is noteworthy. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:06, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Seventeenth century private bowling greens
The article on Bowling Greens is excellent except that it ignores the importance they played in royal and aristocratic gardens in the seventeenth century. Here is an analysis the numbers of new such bowling greens starting in 1660 from a PhD thesis.

I am also including extracts from

David Jacques, Gardens of Court and Country: English Design 1630-1730, New Haven : Yale University Press, 2017, ISBN 9780300222012

41-2

The moist English climate is conducive to good grass. The game of bowls had been popular since the Middle Ages, and became associated with taverns frequented by gamesters and prostitutes. It was seen as diverting yeomen from practising archery and was thus subject to a succession of restrictive statutes: an Act of 1541 banned the playing of bowls outside a person’s own garden or orchard with a penalty of 6s 8d. Accordingly, a yeoman, John Snelson of Croxton, Staffordshire, was fined in 1599 when he was found playing unlawful games, namely ‘English Bowles against the form of the statute in this case published and provided’.47 An exception was made for those with lands of the yearly value of £100, who might obtain licences to play on their own greens.

However, it was a losing battle to enforce the restrictions, as John Stow explained in 1598 in writing about London’s suburbs.48 Any spare ground was likely to be purloined for bowling and gaming, as had formerly happened at Northumberland House in Aldgate, though ‘so many Bowling Alleys, and other houses for unlawful gaming have been raised in other parts of the City &suburbs, that this [place] is left and forsaken by the Gamesters’.

Grub Street was one of these: it had been the area for bowyers, fletchers, and bow-string makers, but was in Stow’s time ‘giving place to a number of bowling-alleys and dicing-houses, which in all places are increased, and too much frequented’.49 It had long been a custom in England that sports and games were played on Sunday afternoons, though the Puritans saw this as a violation of the Fourth Commandment, which prescribed that the Sabbath should be holy and no manner of work should take place on it. Its interpretation had become a point of contention with the gentry, and James I attempted to adjudicate by issuing a proclamation in 1617 called ‘The Book of Sports’, which forbade bowls on Sundays. Many places of public entertainment were already based around greens, and as the craze spread, private greens were made in the gardens of gentleman enthusiasts. William Lawson remarked in 1618 that in his ideal garden ‘it shall be a pleasure to have a Bowling Alley. . . to stretch your armes’.50 Gray’s Inn had already made a green in 1609 immediately outside the garden wall.51 The master of Magdalen College, Oxford, no doubt attempting to divert his charges away from worse temptations, had a bowling green made within the grounds of the college about 1630.52

Around 1610 Prince Henry installed a bowling green in the north-east corner of St James’s Park, called ‘The Spring Garden’, and in 1631 the keeper for both was mentioned in a grant. Members of the Court, and increasingly gentlemen with no connection to it, already walked in the park. As the door into the Spring Garden was just next to the park’s Tiltyard Gate, it had by 1635 become enough of a public resort, serving food and drink, and witnessing scandalous behaviour, for an attempt to close it.53 In 1647 it was closed on Sundays and public fast days. Evelyn found this so in 1654: ‘Cromwell and his partisans having shut up, and seiz’d on Spring Garden, which ’til now had ben the usual rendezvous for the Ladys & Gallants’.54

Instead, Evelyn was entertained at the Mulberry Garden, a four-acre walled garden at the west end of St James’s Park in which James I had attempted to establish silk growing, and which was added to the gardens of Goring House (later Arlington House) in the 1630s. Confiscated and disposed of by Parliament in 1645, it opened shortly after as ‘the onely place of refreshment about the Towne for persons of the best quality’. The Spring Garden itself could not reopen, as it had been divided up for building plots in the 1650s, but the Restoration in 1660 was an opportunity for a ‘New Spring Garden’, a former market garden just across the river at Vauxhall, which became instantly popular.55 The Mulberry Garden served its last mulberry pie in about 1670, when it was reincorporated into the gardens of Goring House, its gambling and whoring having already removed to the New Spring Garden.

Bowling greens continued to be the main attraction for many places of entertainment, especially for the lower orders. Around 1650 the gardens of Marylebone Manor House, including its bowling green, were detached from it and made accessible through the Rose of Normandie tavern, later being known as ‘Marylebone Gardens’. A green on Putney Heath, operated between 1690 and 1750, and became perhaps the most noted in the neighbourhood of London. However, interest in bowling amongst the gentry was to wane by George I’s reign. According to Sir John Cullum, a Suffolk antiquary, ‘Sr Thomas Hanmer, the Speaker, who died in 1746, had a very fine bowling green, contiguous to his house at Mildenhall; and was perhaps one of the last gentlemen of any fashion in the county, that amused themselves with that diversion.’56

67-8

André Mollet, a Frenchman working in England but also familiar with the Low Countries and Sweden, wrote that ‘England excelleth other Countreys. . . in the art of Turffing’.58 He noted that the beautiful effect of English turf depended on frequent mowing. It was well rolled with wooden rollers for removing wormcasts, and beaten down or compacted to an even surface with stone rollers. He also advised a careful selection of turf, such as could be found on sheepwalks, to avoid coarse or tangled grass. London and Wise later added the detail that ‘the Turf-cutters make choice of some part of a fine green Common or Down; such as Black-Heath, Putney-Heath, or Moulsey-Hurst.’59

At mid-century Evelyn, recognising that bowling greens had become an integral part of English gardens, could write that ‘the incomparable divertissement which they afford us, is singular to the English Nation above all others in the World’.60 As new gardens came to be made, bowling greens could be integrated in the layout; for example, at Sir John Danvers’s at Chelsea in the 1620s.61 As mentioned in the previous chapter, Prince Henry had a green in the Spring Garden in St James’s Park, and Charles I contracted with John Tradescant to make one at Oatlands Palace in 1633.62

Several of the private bowling greens were placed outside the garden enclosure, often in the park, as the preserve of the menfolk (fig. 49). For example, that at Hampton Court, made in 1636, was placed at the edge of the park, overlooking the Thames (see fig. 90). When Charles I was confined to Carisbrooke Castle in 1648–9 his gaoler, Colonel Hammond, constructed a green of 350 by 250 feet in the vacant east bailey of the castle to be the King’s chief recreation.63 The greens at Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland (see fig. 38), and Belvoir, Leicestershire (see fig. 112), took advantage of hill-top positions, both maybe in the 1670s, but from about that time most new greens were incorporated into planned walled layouts (fig. 50). At Dawley one was placed to the side of the open grove at the far end of the Great Garden and at Badminton the green was to the side of the forecourt (see fig. 117).

In the early 1630s Best Gardens were for the first time converted to simple grass plats, and the English skills in maintaining bowling greens were transferred to them. Sometimes grass plats were actually referred to as ‘bowling greens’ – for example, as Evelyn did in 1651 when drawing the plats in his forecourt – and the French term ‘boulingrin’ appears to have derived from this usage. This fashion altered the appearance of pleasure gardens, in that fencing was dispensed with and grass introduced, but the old geometry continued, often emphasised by pencil-thin cypress trees, or another evergreen, at corners. It gave a garden restfulness and made it suitable for walking, and was retained throughout Charles II’s reign (fig. 51). 1948dlj (talk) 09:51, 7 April 2024 (UTC)