Cross Scythes Bowling Green
We would like to thank John Johnson for sending us further photographs of his father Maurice. One of Maurice taken in his WW1 uniform has been added to a short biography which can be found in Totley in WW1.
The photograph below shows the Cross Scythes Bowling Club with Maurice Johnson seated second from the right on the front row. We would guess that it is taken in the 1960s.
Cross Scythes Bowling Club; Maurice Johnson second from the right, front row, holding cap.
In this earlier photograph, Maurice is also sitting on the front row, second from the right.
Cross Scythes Bowling Club; Maurice Johnson second from the right, front row, arms folded.
Robert Jackson remembered there was a the crown green of irregular shape at the back of The Cross Scythes Hotel and that the players went down two or three steps onto the green, the entrance being guarded by two brown stone recumbent lions. Ivor Lewis said that his grandfather, David Lewis, was instrumental in designing and constructing the bowling green. It was originally turfed with pasture grasses that he had selected from Totley Hall Farm.
Jo Rundle had good reason to remember it well as her Dad was captain of the Cross Scythes Bowling Club in 1926 having won the Yorkshire open competition the previous year. Although only 10 years old at the time, Jo had been well schooled by her father and won second prize in the first ever Ladies Day competition and was presented with a black velvet-lined case containing a cut glass butter dish and a silver butter knife donated by Billy Wise. This was the first of four years she played on Ladies Day, adding further prizes of a silver toast-rack and a silver and china jam-dish.