Club

Croquet

Wrest Park

More notes on Bedford Croquet Club

There is a short article on the Bedford club in the November 2005 newsletter, available on the Archive page. More historical information is posted next to the old club honours board and other memorabilia on the wall in the pavilion, and it was suggested that old copies of the Croquet Gazette (which can now be read online) might reveal what happened to the club. The issues from the mid-1950s chart the club’s decline, but there does not appear to be any clear evidence as to exactly how and why this came about.

The first issue of the Croquet Gazette in April 1953 has a summary list of the official tournaments for the year, which tended to be week-long events at clubs with at least four courts The Bedford CC tournament is included, with the tournament details (including a list of five hotels) appearing in the May issue.

The tournament was to take place over six days starting on Monday 29 June, and there would be four events: Open Singles, two Handicap Singles (4 and above and unrestricted) and Handicap Doubles (aggregate 1 or more). The entry fee for the Open Singles was nine shillings. Play would begin at 10am and hoops would be set at 3¾”. Five courts were available. Bedford originally had nine courts, so this suggests that some space had had to be given up some time before. A comprehensive tournament report including the full results appeared in the August issue. Entries varied from 12 in the Open Singles to 22 pairs in the Handicap Doubles. It was noted that morning coffee and afternoon tea were brought out to the players.

This pattern was repeated for the next three seasons: the summary list of tournaments in the April issue, followed by the tournament details in May, a report in August and a regular entry in the directory of clubs. The tournament report for 1956 mentioned that there were fewer entries, and this must have been the last tournament held at the club as there was no tournament advertised in the April 1957 issue, although the club still appeared in the directory of clubs. An inkling of what had come about appeared in an article by Brian Lloyd Pratt in the August issue of that year in the course of which he referred to “the demise of the Bedford club”.

In 1958 there was a sad postscript when, in an entry for Bedford in the Notes from Clubs column in the April issue, it stated that “Associates will be glad to hear that Bedford is still alive. After prolonged negotiations arrangements have been made to retain one court, and Miss Steel will always be pleased to give a warm welcome to any croquet players who happen to be in the district.” Unfortunately there is nothing to indicate with whom or why the negotiations had been conducted. Miss Steel was the renowned Dorothy Dyne Steel, who lived nearby in Biddenham and after her playing days acted as manager of the Bedford tournaments. She died in January 1965, and her obituary appeared in the April issue of the Gazette.

Bedford last appeared in the directory of clubs in the December 1960 issue of the Gazette. The site of Bedford CC’s lawns, on the east side of Kimbolton Road opposite Glebe Road, is now occupied by the Bedford Charter House care home, part of the Bedford Health Village.


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