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Summary

Description

Circa 1907. Single storey, 3-bay, Arts and Crafts style bowling pavilion with veranda supported on turned timber posts. Painted timber detailing with decorative brickwork to gables. Half-hipped slate roof; ornamental red terracotta ridge tiles and finials.

Plain bargeboard and valance to gables, with curvilinear timber detailing to the veranda eaves. Half-glazed timber panelled door with deeply moulded decorative panels. Fixed bipartite windows to front elevation with small-pane glazing to upper section and single, shoulder-arched panes to lower half. Similar glazing pattern to N elevation.

INTERIOR: (seen, 2013). Largely intact with boarded timber panelling to all interior walls and ceiling; evidence of simple stencilling at dado. Diamond-set tiles to interior and veranda floor. Small side room to S containing simple cast-iron corner urinal and porcelain basin with decorative cast-iron apron and legs.

Statement of Special Interest

Dating from around 1907, Powfoot Bowling Pavilion is a good example of its type and is representative of the English Arts and Crafts style, evident in the use of brick, applied timber and roof ridge detailing. This diminutive building occupies a prominent streetscape position in the centre of Powfoot, a small surviving area of an ambitious proposed designed seaside resort by regional architect Frank J C Carruthers. The pavilion has largely been unaltered, both externally and internally.

The use of brick is unusual, however this variation in material adds interest to the pavilion. Other contemporary buildings in the vicinity are also built of red brick suggesting there was at one point a notable regional or local trade. In around 1894, John Bell and Joseph Burnie, local builders who had made their fortune in Merseyside, returned to the area and developed the red-brick houses that surround the pavilion, and these remain a distinctive characteristic feature of Powfoot today.

The brick buildings at Powfoot were intended to be part of a larger seaside resort which never came to fruition. Dubbed the Blackpool of the Solway, the design of the future resort was the brainchild of the wealthy English industrialist and manufacturer Edward Brook who, following his purchase of the Kinmount estate at Cummertrees in 1896 (see separate listing), started by laying roads out to the shore and creating a series of ornamental ponds. As the holiday industry began to flourish in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century, partly due to the advent of the railway, resorts and the ability to escape the pressure of working and city life appealed to the increasing number of workers. Seaside resorts were being created for relaxation and leisure purposes, and in effect this building would have been a significant contribution to the recreational life of the planned town.

However, the proposed seaside development conflicted with local fishing interests and the scheme was eventually abandoned. The English seaside-style Queensberry Terrace in Cummertrees (see separate listings) is indicative of the kind of housing that Brook had envisaged stretching right to the waterfront.

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.

Previous list description from 2003 had reference to information being provided by a Mr Ian Burdett.

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

References

Bibliography

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