Blacklandmill Bowling Club

en burn, which took the name of Blacklandmill Mill. By the beginning of this century the work extended through several large buildings and the processes drew on the water collected from the Glen Burn and the Carse Green Pond. Although not on the same scale as Ferguslie and Anchor Mills, Blacklandmill had hundreds of employees and fostered growth of social and sporting facilities. The owners had encouraged the formation of football and Athletic Club which used land adjacent to the works and a large reservoir at the back of the works was used as a curling pond in cold weather. A small bowling green was lost when the works were extended. In 1905 a group of workers got together and approached the management, Adam Hamilton and sons, with a request for a new company bowling green. The company responded by agreeing to lease the land above the Carse Green Pond to the bowlers at the cost of 10 shillings a year for 10 years - an exceptionally low rate which was no doubt intended to get the club off to a good start. The first meetings of the new were held in various parts of the works e.g. the lapping room and the school room, while the green and bowl house were being constructed. At an early date a decision was taken to open up membership to employees of three neighbouring companies - Brown & Polsons, William Fulton at Glenfield and the Nethercraigs works. Another decision was to invite gentleman of the area to become members and the first to be approached was Mr John A Brown, owner of Brown & Polsons, who lived near Blacklandmill in the house called 'Moredun'. The fees for the first year were, 10/- for Blacklndmill employees, 12/6d for employees of three other companies and 15/- for a private person. The cost of laying the green and building the club house came to £400 and the committee set about raising the funds to offset these costs. One method was to solicit donations from wealthy members of society, but, in addition to this, Blacklandmill set about a unique fund-raising effort which proved very successful. They held a raffle with three thousand tickets at three pence each. This was so successful that twenty thousand tickets were sold - an astonishing number - raising a total of £250. The bowling green was inaugurated on 20th May and Mrs George Hamilton, wife of the manager, threw a silver jack and pronounced the green open. The club continued to flourish over the years retaining a strong tie with the local community, initially people in employment locally and later those who lived locally. The building of large areas of council housing changed the emphasis in the membership and in 1955, the clubs Jubilee year, the club became independent of the dye works, owned at this time by a Manchester based firm, Bradford Bleachers and Dyers. The club was purchased from the company for £1000 - a bargain

Even today the club has a definite local character with the majority of members living in Glenburn and some families have a long tradition of membership of the club. The original Pavilion, built in 1905, still stands at the East side of the green and for many years it was the local point of activities for the club. Now it acts as the bowls house, since new premises were first built at the North side of the green in 1965. The present club house was built in 1980 around the Banbury which as then demolished from inside. An extension was added early in 2000 on the east side to provide a committee room and an office

One of the foremost players at the club was undoubtedly Adam Laing. Adam brought many achievements to Blacklandmill. He won the club championship 9 times. Adam won the P&D Single Champion of Champions in 1969 and 1974. Adam was president of the club in 1957 and went on to be President of the Renfrewshire BA in 1976 the year he won the prestigious Bournemouth singles tournament and returned home with one of the prize trophies of British bowling. The final was played before a crowd of 600 and his opponent was fellow Scot Bob Sutherland, Adam prevailing 21-17. Adams sudden death in 1978, only months after retiring, undoubtedly cut short an outstanding bowling career. The clubs golden bowling period was undoubtedly from 1989 to 2004 where Blacklandmill won the league 9 times in 16 years (4 out of 5 from 2000-04). During this time the club also won 26 P&D Cups and 12 Champion of Champion titles. We also competed and won the Thomas Cook Trophy (P&D League winners v J&D League winners) 7 times. In the Renshaw we won the Challenge Cup twice. Also the RBA Centenary Cup was won 3 times, County Cup once and the Renfrewshire top 10 twice. But the highlight of this period was winning the Scottish Interdistrict Top Ten, in 1995 at Eddlewood, Hamilton and again in 2000 at Collinton, Edinburgh