Club history

In 2005 the area now occupied by the croquet lawns was just a rough pasture, with a tangle of  metre-high grass and weeds.  Seeing it, Richard Field, our club founder, and several co-conspirators and subsequent founder members had a dream - to create a croquet club!

 

 

By 2006 the fledgling club had a semblance of a lawn but no shelter and very basic equipment. Members squatted on orange boxes between games.

By 2008 the club had raised £5,000 to build a clubhouse/storeroom, and a year later was playing matches against other Yorkshire Clubs. By 2011 it had a team in the Yorkshire League.

The blackest year was 2012 when, due to unprecedented summer rainfall, the lawns were regularly under water, causing the grass to die and ominous hollows to appear in the ground. 
 

 

The plan to undertake a major ground improvement scheme involved laying 420 yards of piped land drains, importing 320 tons of new top soil, levelling the area with up to eight lasers and then seeding - and hoping for the best!

 

 

 

 

Almost 60 members and guests were at Bishop Monkton Croquet Club on Monday 9 June 2015 to help celebrate the completion of the club's £17,500 ground improvement project and the opening of splendid new lawns.

By 2018 hot summers meant that the lawns were regularly drying out too much and members had to instigate a rota of lawn watering.  So it was back to fund-raising to install an irrigation system which was duly installed in time for the summer in 2022.