Welcome to Croesoswallt Archers
Croesoswallt Archers nominated in the top 3 'Community Clubs' and were placed 'Highly Commended' at the ArcheryGB Club and Volunteer Awards 2021
Club History
The first seeds of the archery club were sown in May 1957 when the head of physiotherapy at the orthopaedic hospital in Gobowen, Oswestry, contacted the Overton Archery Club and asked if they could arrange a demonstration of archery at the hospital. At that time the hospital was considering using archery as therapy for patients. Overton club took some equipment to the hospital and a demonstration was given (23rd May 1957). Suitably impressed, the hospital decided (17th June 1957) to go ahead and started an archery group for the benefit of patients and staff, informally called Orthopaedic Archers. A couple of months later (August 1957), the Overton club donated some equipment to the hospital to start them off. At the beginning of the following season (March 1958) the Overton club agreed to adopt the Orthopaedic Archers to enable them to gain regional status and for administration purposes.
At this point records are a bit vague. There are references to Croesoswallt Archers as well as to Oswestry Archery Club but it is not known whether these were separate clubs or use of different names for the same club. The first mention of the name “Croesoswallt Archers” was in Nov. 1962 when Overton club hosted the Deeside Western League competition which Croesoswallt attended. Then, in 1962, Croesoswallt joined North Wales Archery Society as an affiliated club in its own right. A note in the AGM minutes in their December 1962 meeting welcomes the new club into their society.
Interestingly, in Nov. 1964 there is further mention in Overton club’s notes of Oswestry Archery Club attending their ground for a DWL competition but unclear, as mentioned above, whether this is use of a different name for the same club or reference to a different club altogether.
The Overton Archery Club shared grounds with the cricket club. At some point the cricket club started playing league matches, requiring more frequent use of the grounds for both practice and well as league events. In Jan 1969 Overton Archery club noted difficulties in continuing archery there and discuss joining Croesoswallt Archers at their grounds at the Quinta School in Western Rhyn. There are references to both Croesoswallt Archers and Oswestry Archery Club using these grounds, which adds further question to whether these are different clubs. However, some members of Overton transfer and the Overton Club itself donated some equipment for their use. Discussions in Feb 1970 over the increasing difficulties in sharing the Overton ground with the cricket club led to considering finding a new location but after this there are no further notes from this club so it is assumed that it was permanently disbanded.
Since Croesoswallt Archers was first affiliated with the NWAS in 1962 the club has been long established for hosting the Silver Dollar tournament. The first mention of Croesoswallt Archers being at the Orthopaedic hospital at Gobowen was 1974 when they hosted the Silver Dollar tournament there. It is assumed that at some time between 1970 and 1974 the Croesoswallt Archers moved from the Quinta in Western Rhyn to the hospital grounds in Gobowen, merging the two clubs into one (Orthopaedic Archery Club and Croesoswallt Archers) and thereby becoming permanently based there.
With the club’s shooting ground originally located at Western Rhyn it was originally affiliated with North Wales Archery Society and remained so long after the move to the hospital grounds in Gobowen. In 2015 it was decided to transfer affiliation to the Shropshire Archery Society as the club was actually located in Shropshire and not North Wales.
More recently, after a long association with the orthopaedic hospital, continued use of the site in the hospital grounds became more in doubt for a number of reasons. The hospital informed the club that they would be requiring the ground the club occupied for their own development needs, which prompted a search for an alternative shooting ground in the area. Then, in Spring 2020 the owner of the British Ironworks Centre near Oswestry, offered the club the use of what was at the time an agricultural grassland field on their property. Consequently the club moved to its new location and has since developed an impressive array of archery ranges on the
10 acre site.
