{"id":23777,"date":"2019-05-09T19:09:52","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23777"},"modified":"2019-05-09T19:10:03","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:10:03","slug":"time-travellers-diary-lawn-bowling-the-oldest-sport-in-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-lawn-bowling-the-oldest-sport-in-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER’S DIARY: Lawn Bowling \u2013 the Oldest Sport in Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jeff Walker
Community Time Traveller
Aurora Lawn Bowling Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first lawn\nbowling was enjoyed in the early 1900s, when people found room to play on\nsections of their own lawns; one was on the Hillary House lawn just north of\nthe existing building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this time, the\nMen\u2019s Group at Trinity Anglican Church decided to level the grounds adjacent to\nthe church for a bowling green, and with uncharacteristic disregard for the\nhistory of the parish, moved any remaining stones from the cemetery from sixty\nyears earlier and laid them by the east wall of the chancel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the graves of\nsome of the church\u2019s earliest members, lawn bowls rolled and tournaments were\nheld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1912, a lawn\nbowling and tennis club was organized in connection with Trinity Church, with\nDr. Hillary as president and the Reverend Gerald S. Despard, honourary\npresident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1914, on May 15,\nthere was an enthusiastic re-organization meeting when the Aurora Lawn Bowling\nClub was formed with Dr. Ford Butler (dentist) as president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1933, after many\nyears of lawn bowling on the church grounds, the Club was lucky to get a\nsection of McMahon Park for the creation of a full-sized bowling green. A\nclubhouse was needed, so an old log cabin was acquired near Pefferlaw, and the\nmen from the Club took it down log by log, and Mr. Charles Fry used his truck\nto bring the building to McMahon Park where it was assembled and used as the\nclubhouse for many years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1973, the Town of\nAurora, with a financial contribution from the Lions Club of Aurora, decided to\nconstruct a new clubhouse for the Lawn Bowling and Tennis Clubs, which resulted\nin the log cabin being moved from McMahon Park to the Sheppard\u2019s Bush\nConservation Area \u2013 where it is today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June of that year,\nMayor Evelyn Buck officially opened the new McMahon Sports Pavilion where both\nClubs now enjoy their sport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On July 23, 2014, the\nAurora Lawn Bowling Club celebrated its 100th Anniversary with members and\nguests enjoying an afternoon of celebration and games with Reverend Ian Martin\nfrom Trinity Anglican Church, Mayor Geoffrey Dawe and MPP Chris Ballard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May 15, 2019 the\nAurora Lawn Bowling Club will be 105 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawn bowling is a sport for all ages and the\nAurora Lawn Bowling Club is the best place to learn how to play the game, meet\npeople and enjoy friendly competition.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Walker Community Time Traveller Aurora Lawn Bowling Club The first lawn bowling was enjoyed in the early 1900s, when people found room to play on sections of their own lawns; one was on the Hillary House lawn just north of the existing building. During this time, the Men\u2019s Group at Trinity Anglican Church […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6bv","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 06:03:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}