The Far East
Bowls on the seafront
The most easterly facility is Great Yarmouth Bowling Club in Norfolk at coordinates 52°36’ N 1°44’ E. The mean annual rainfall is
542.mm. The average air temperature in January is 3°C and, in August, 20°C
BRITANNIA bowling greens were built in 1930 by Great Yarmouth Borough Council as public greens. The five greens were originally laid with Cumberland turf on natural sand, being only yards from the beach.
In 1933 the Britannia Bowls Club was formed and now plays on the greens that are, in theory, also open to the general public. However, in practice that rarely happens!
In August 1945 the Great Yarmouth
Festival of Bowls was launched and the event has been run every year since then. It is reckoned to be the biggest four-week outdoors bowls tournament in the UK, attracting over 1,500 entrants in the twelve different categories. The greens are maintained by Great
Yarmouth Borough Services Limited, a company partnership set up between the
council and Norfolk County Services. They are mown three times a week during the playing season (May to October).
The Head Greenkeeper is David
Howard, and he has three assistants, Darren Rushbrook, Shaun Moore and Joe Smith. The greens are maintained using Dennis FT610 cassette nine bladed cylinder mowers that come with scarifier and verticutting units. During the season the greens are cut
three times a week with heights of cut maintained between 5-7mm for general play and down to 5mm for tournament play. The greens are verticut once a month and vertidrained when conditions allow.
The summer feeding programme involves three applications of Pentagon
Prestige fine turf fertiliser
(spring/summer mix) 14:4:8 + 2% fe + 2% mg + 12.76% s. Winter maintenance begins with the end of season renovations that, in general, involves solid tine spiking, topdressing and overseeding. Every third year the greens are hollow cored. The winter feeding programme consists of one application of Pentagon Prestige (autumn/winter mix) 6:6:12 +2% fe + 2% mg +11.8% s. The greens are cut monthly at a height of 15mm.
67
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132