Olive Press Flat Green Bowling Lapta lunch date

By Chris Elliott…….

Life can be all work and no play if you let it, so for me it’s nice to spend a little time relaxing even if I turn my experiences into an interesting article for our readers’ enjoyment.

Recently I went to The Olive Press Lawn Green Bowling club in Lapta to join friends who meet regularly for lunch followed by a speaker. Last month we decided to change venue and learn more about the ancient art of Lawn Green Bowling.

After we had all arrived and had our refreshments we had a very interesting talk given by Sam Stevenson who was the past President of the Kelvindale Bowling Club in Glasgow about the ancient art of Lawn Green Bowling which was both humorous and enthralling.

Sam explained that bowls, which was known to be a game of the Romans, was developing in the UK but during the 13th century in England the game was banned as it was in France as it was affecting the necessary practice of archery. In Scotland the game carried on regardless and over the centuries lawn green bowling which includes the variants of flat green bowling and crown green bowling developed into the game we know today.

He said that sadly in Scotland as in England the game is not so popular as it was but continues with a very mixed age group facing up to each other on the green. It is a gentlemen’s game played by gentlemen with many women also now playing and proving their mettle.

Australia is another country where the game is very popular and Sam said there is a lot of fresh activity around the world to promote the sport and he hopes that one day we will see teams from the TRNC playing against the best in the world.  

Now was the time for all of us to try our hand with a game supervised by Sam and co owners Martin Appleton and John Isles and they explained that all bowls or woods have a different bias and are supplied in matched sets so in a game everyone has a set of bowls with their own characteristics which must be managed as our group soon discovered.

With most of our group trying their hand at the game, it was fascinating to see those that had played before, but of those that had not, just how quickly they started to master the run of the bowl in its length and turn of the bias to reach the jack bowl. To make the task even more enjoyable Martin set up a target at the end of the green and it was great to see how individuals performed.

Tired but happy we all retired to the restaurant and had the lunch we had chosen before giving our thanks to Sam and of course the owners Martin, John, Ann and Louise and their staff at the Olive Press for making our visit so enjoyable.

For those local readers that would like to try their hand at flat green bowling, you can have a free lesson and can read more of this on the Olive Press Facebook page – Click here.

For me, the visit was most enjoyable and reminded me of my first visit to the club when it was getting ready to open and I wrote an article which I will republish on these pages soon as it shows just how, through hard work, a business can be started and become successful and in this case, bring so much enjoyment to so many people.

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