Historians believe that the game developed from the Egyptians. One of their pastimes was to play skittles with round stones. Artefacts of this game have been found in tombs dating 5,000 B.C.
A form of the game was played in England in the 13th century. A manuscript of that period in the royal library contains a drawing representing two players aiming at a small cone instead of an earthenware ball or jack.
Bowls in England has been traced certainly to the 12th century
The world’s oldest surviving bowling green is the Southampton Old Bowling Green, which was first used in 1299
Shakespeare was apparently a member of a bowling club, and his plays are littered with references to the sport.
Bowls are designed to travel a curved path because of a weight bias which was originally produced by inserting weights in one side of the bowl. The word bias itself is recorded as a technical term of the game in the 1560s. The insertion of weights is no longer permitted by the rules and bias is now produced entirely by the shape of the bowl
The patenting of the first lawn mower in 1830, in Britain, is strongly believed to have been the catalyst for the worldwide preparation of modern-style greens.