THE BOWLING-GREEN
The ancient bowling-green at the Stewponey remains in good
condition to the present day, although the once popular and
excellent English pastime of bowls has there, as elsewhere, fallen into desuetude.
In old England there was not a village, country house, without
its bowling-green. A century ago the game held its own steadily, and it is within the last seventy or eighty years only that it has lost favour and has been supplanted by croquet and lawn tennis.
A bowling-green was necessarily sixty yards in length and half
that in breadth, so that the space required was considerable. The
rustic bowler on the village green had to make allowance for the
inequalities of the ground, but the gentleman player used every
precaution that his green should be absolutely even, the grass
unbroken by groundsel and daisy, and smooth and short as velvet
pile.
The bowling ground at the Stewponey, hedged about with
small-leafed elms, well elevated above the road and river, and
consequently dry, constituted a prime attraction to the inn, and
the landlord spared no pains to keep it in order. The sward might
compare with that in any nobleman's grounds. The bowls with which
the game was played were not precisely the same as those now
manufactured. They had the shape of flattened oranges, and were
loaded with lead inserted in one side to serve as bias, or
tendency wards the end of the course to describe a sweep. When
delivered, the ball runs directly to its end, but as soon as it
reaches the point where the force that launched it is expended, then it curls, carried by the weight of the lead, and turns in an arc. And it is here, in the practical knowledge of the effect of the bias, that the difficulty of the game consists, and the skill of the player is exhibited.
Nor is this all. At the present day, all bowls are of a
standard size and regulation weight. But formerly it was not so. The bowls were turned by the village carpenter, and little nicety was observed as to the amount of lead inserted. Those on the village green, those on the Squire's lawn, those on the alehouse ground, were not of necessity of the same weight and size. Not only so, but among the bowls on the same green there existed no exact uniformity. The bowls were numbered in pairs, and the players either drew for their numbers, or, if accustomed to meet for the game on the same turf, adhered to their numbers, and so acquired perfect familiarity with the peculiarities of their several bowls. When no game could be played with zest except for money, whether cards, bowls, or pulling straws, there was ever a risk of fraud; and to this the game under consideration lent itself with peculiar facility, as it was an easy matter to tamper with the bias, and so alter the character of the run of the ball.
Cornelius Rea was not disappointed in his anticipation that
the advertisement of the match would draw the entire
neighbourhood together at his inn. Indeed, all the neighbouring
parishes had decanted their male population into the grounds of
the Stewponey, whilst the road without was choked with women and
children, and such men as could not afford to pay for admission. Boys had climbed trees, girls were thrusting their heads through gaps in thorn hedges, in hopes of obtaining a view free of cost.
Will anyone say that what is here described is and was
impossible? That it is impossible at the close of the nineteenth
century may be at once admitted, but it was quite otherwise with
the latter half of the century that is gone. It is hard, almost
impossible, for us to conceive that things were witnessed by our
grandfathers which seem to us quite incredible. To disarm
criticism, then, let me affirm that just such a contest for a
woman, as is here described, did take place, and in the very same
parish of Kinver, so late as within the first twenty years of the
century which our readers render illustrious by living in it. On
this occasion the woman entertained a decided and tender
preference for one of the competitors, and unhappily he proved
unsuccessful. Nevertheless, she loyally adhered to the compact
entered into before the game was played, and married the man who
was victor, and for whom she entertained no liking. An united and
happy couple they proved to be.