History (Continued)
THE MOVE TO THE STRATHMORE ROAD GREEN
At a special meeting of club members held on 3 October 1879, the
following petition with 28 signatories was presented:
“A very general desire has been expressed among the bowlers that the
time has now come when we ought to look after the formation of a new
Bowling Green and with this end in view the subscribers respectfully
request the Directors to call a meeting of the whole Club on an early
date to discuss the matter and arrange as to future proceedings”.
There was general agreement that a new green was needed because of the
deteriorating condition of the existing green. It was in the middle of
what was now an overcrowded area of old Hamilton. Because of the influx
of people looking for employment in the surrounding mines and ironworks,
the old houses in the streets around the bowling green had virtually
become Victorian slums. Furthermore, streets like Young Street which was
immediately beside the green had become notorious with the police as
areas of crime and disorder.
In looking for a new suitably level site, the members of the club were
conscious of the need to have the green in a convenient location but not
too close to the hurly-burly of the town centre. The bowlers wanted to
have some privacy.
An ideal position proposed by several members was to be found on a piece
of land to the west of Hamilton Old Parish Church, beside the Cholera
Burial Ground and on the edge of steeply sloping banks above the Cadzow
Burn.
The directors of the club set up a sub committee to undertake the
negotiations and the subsequent arrangements for setting up the new
green. This New Green Committee met regularly from late 1879 until
February 1881 and in that remarkably short period of the time they
succeeded in obtaining a lease for the land, planning the layout of the
green and supervising all the necessary work, including the building of
the bowl house.
The lease on the site was agreed, initially for 25 years at a charge of
twenty pounds a year. This was finalised in November 1879 and the club’s
lease was to begin in June 1880.
Work proceeded quickly with the surveying and planning of the green and
all the associated construction work. After receiving tenders from
several contractors the work of cutting, draining and levelling the
ground was given to a local company whose price was two hundred and
fourteen pounds nine shillings.
Particularly careful consideration was given to the business of
obtaining the all-important turf for the green. Initially a deputation
of members visited a site near Irvine where suitably fine and durable
grass was to be found. After taking advice from a Glasgow greenkeeper,
however, the sub committee decided to buy their turf from an estate near
the Holy Loch on the north side of the Firth of Clyde. To inspect that
turf, to purchase it and to arrange for transporting it to Hamilton was
a complex assignment for the group of members involved. The total weight
of the load was 95.5 tons and this had to be shipped in four separate
cargoes from Holy Loch to Port Glasgow, then to be taken by slow,
horse-drawn carts to the new site in Hamilton.
The bowl house was designed by a local architect, William Paterson, and
in its general style and in the facilities which it would be providing
it, understandably, met with the general satisfaction of all the
members.
After receiving tenders for the construction of the bowl house from
local tradesmen, the New Green Committee agreed to award the various
contracts at the most competitive prices: brick and mason work for sixty
pounds, joiner work for seventy six pounds, plumbing work for thirty two
pounds and channel and gratings around the green for twenty pounds.
The roof of the bowl house was slated free of charge by William McGhie,
a local tradesman, who was also a member of the club. In return for this
he was offered life membership but he later insisted on paying his
annual subscription.
Quite remarkably, most of the work of constructing the green and
building the bowl house was completed in time for the opening ceremony
on 17 August 1880. The new green was formally opened by Sir John Watson
of Earnock.
This whole ambitious undertaking had cost Hamilton Bowling Club
approximately five hundred pounds. Of that, over two hundred pounds was
raised through subscriptions and other donations. The remaining sum was
borrowed and the loan was paid off gradually over the following years.
By the end of the 1880 season, then, the Club had two bowling greens and
they were both closed on 27 October. That was to be the end of the
club’s association with its old green. From season 1881 onwards Hamilton
Bowling Club was located up the hill in its fine new open site beside
what was later to be called Strathmore Road.
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