Description

William Bell, 1906. Single storey, 3-bay, rectangular-plan pavilion with deeply swept bellcast roof overhanging eaves and forming cover to rustic colunmned veranda at SE and NW. Slatted timber with decoratively-carved cornice. Timber transoms and mullions.

SE (BOWLING GREEN) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Decorative part-glazed, semi-circular pediment to centre of veranda roof, set-back 2-leaf part-glazed timber door and transomed 4-light windows to flanking bays.

NW (TENNIS COURTS) ELEVATION: mirrors the above with timber panelled entrance door.

SW ELEVATION: 3 transomed bipartite windows.

NE ELEVATION: 3 single windows.

Plate glass glazing in timber windows. Louvered swept sheet metal gambrel roof. Banded and corniced centre brick stack with can.

INTERIORS: (seen, 2013). Timber-lined and shelved with original seating, lockers, bowling racks and timber fireplaces.

Statement of Interest

This is a distinctive and rare example of a little altered timber bowling and tennis pavilion with a remarkable deeply swept roof. The pavilion was designed to provide facilites for tennis to one side of the pavilion and bowling on the other; this plan-form is rare. Both sides have common features to the interior in the central fire surrounds, and smaller rooms, but the main rooms retain the distintive timber lockers for tennis players and bowling racks for the bowlers.

Aberfeldy bowling club was established in 1861 and the original bowling green was situated in a different part of the town. Victoria Park was leased to the town by the Marquis of Breadalbane in 1897, at the nominal rent of one shilling per annum. In 1905, the Bowling club successfully petitioned the Town Council to set aside some of the land for a new bowling club and the pavilion was built in 1905. William Bell (1856-1914) was a local architect, and was also the Aberfeldy Burgh Surveyor.

Lawn bowls today is a hugely popular sport in Scotland. It has a long and distinguished history with the earliest reference to the game in Scotland appearing in 1469, when James IV played a variation of the game referred to as 'lang bowlis' at St Andrews in Fife. The first public bowling green in Scotland was laid out in 1669 at Haddington, near Edinburgh, however it was not until 1864 that the rules of the modern game were committed to writing by William Mitchell of Glasgow in his Manual of Bowl-Playing. Machine manufactured standard bowls were invented by Thomas Taylor Ltd, also of Glasgow, in 1871 and the Scottish Bowling Association was formed in 1892. The advent of indoor bowling also began in Scotland around 1879. Today there are around 900 clubs in Scotland with an estimated 90,000 active lawn bowls players.

Modern lawn tennis was established in 1874 by Major Walter Wingfield who developed a new style of the game and a new type of court in order to speed up play. The Wingfield version came to Scotland when James Pattern tested the new game outside at the Grange Cricket Ground in Edinburgh around 1874 date and it soon became the version which was preferred by players.

Category changed from C to B and list description updated as part of the sporting buildings thematic study (2012-13).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17829711

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)