Club

Croquet

Wrest Park

Water, water everywhere

Croquet clubs around the country, faced with the prospect of more unpredictable summer weather, have been installing various kinds of irrigation systems to allow their lawns to be watered in times of drought. We do not have access to a nearby stream, and sinking a borehole, apart from being extremely expensive, would come up against English Heritage’s rules regarding Scheduled Monument Consent. So what to do?

Our solution has been a modest investment in a Nelson Rain Train Water Tractor - a self-propelled sprayer fed by mains water via a hosepipe and pump. A tap and water meter were installed in the boiler room in the pavilion in order to have water available as near to mains pressure as possible. A large diameter hose takes the supply from the tap out to the patio area, where it is connected to an electric pump. This transfers the supply to a smaller diameter hose which extends out to the lawns and is laid out in the direction the sprayer is to follow.

The sprayer is connected to the hose and turned round so the front wheels straddle the hose, and the water pressure drives a turbine inside which rotates the sprayer head and also causes the sprayer itself to move slowly forwards on its four wheels, following the line of the hose. The sprayer can be stopped at any point by placing a ramp over the hose; there is a cut-off switch on the underside of the sprayer body which is actuated when the sprayer passes over the ramp.

The sprayer in action, following the line of the hose laid across the lawn

There have been teething troubles: the original intention of running the hose from the tap in the north changing room revealed a lack of pressure necessitating the installation of the tap in the boiler room, and we are still experimenting with various types of hose connectors in order to minimise leaks. But it works - on Monday 5 August the system completed one 30 yard pass across lawn 3 and another across lawn 2 without mishap. Each pass covers a strip about 12 yards wide, takes three hours to complete and delivers about three cubic metres of water, equivalent to a third of an inch of rain over the area covered.

George Collin and Eric Audsley checking the pump for leaks.

Watering a whole lawn would take three passes and about nine hours. We can only cover lawns 1, 2 and 3 as the hose is not long enough to reach lawn 4, and even if it was the associated pressure drop might be too much. Nevertheless the system is effective and the total outlay was in the order of £1000, so in comparison to other systems it is relatively cheap. Thanks are due to all those who were involved in its acquisition and who continue to work to improve its performance.

© Wrest Park Croquet Club