Learn about sailing, model airplanes, lawn bowling and pastimes of yesteryear
By Mark Schadenberg
The front of the brochure sums it all
up nicely: “Free tours of intriguing sites in Oxford County”
Doors Open Oxford is Saturday, May 30,
10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and this year's theme is sports.
All 16 stops on the tour are free and
are varied from the Norwich Lawn Bowling Club to the Oxford County
Museum School in Ingersoll, plus the Annandale National Historic Site
in Tillsonburg and the Embro West Zorra Community Centre. The Norwich
sports hall of fame will be the highlight exhibit at the Norwich &
District Museum and Archives on Stover Street North.
The Oxford County Museum School is a
replica of a schoolroom from the late 1880's, and a demonstration
there will include sports and games from the era. This museum is part
of the Ingersoll Cheese & Agricultural Museum at 290 Harris
Street in Ingersoll.
Seven of the locations are in and
around Woodstock – Oxford Sailing Club and the Pittock
Conservation Area on the north side of the Gordon Pittock Reservoir
(Thames River) and the Woodstock Dragon Boat Racing Club on the south
shore of Pittock (Park in the Roth Park lot). Just east of Woodstock
and also on the south side of Pittock is where the model airplane
flying club has a field (Township Road 4 near 'The Pines' bike
trails).
The Woodstock Badminton Club and Cowan Park indoor soccer facility will both organize an open house tour. To keep all your limbs in slow motion, a tai chi association demonstration will take place at their home at 467 Dundas Street. Another location will have youth involved as 'The Ship' – Sea Cadet hall and clubhouse -- in Southside Park will also be promoting itself.
BASEBALL IN BEACHVILLE
It was on June 4, 1838 that the
first-ever recorded baseball game was played in Beachville.
If you have never seen the baseball
display at the Beachville District Museum, Doors Open Oxford is a
great opportunity. Dr. Adam Ford wrote about a game in Beachville in
a publication called Sporting Life.
Baseball was a different game 180 years
ago as a batter was a knocker and a base was a bye. There was also
four bases and you were permitted to throw the ball at a runner
between the bases and if you hit him the runner was out and that
manoeuvre was called a plugger.
The Beachville museum, which I have
focused on in a blog previously, also has rooms displaying antique
toys, Mastodon bones (Correct; I can't make these things up), the
history of the local pit mine, historic sewing and craft machines,
furniture of yesteryear, and a unique small-scale model of what
Beachville looked like 150 years ago.
Additional venues for Doors Open Oxford
are in Otterville and Tavistock.
Among the organizers of this annual
event are: Tourism Oxford, Woodstock Heritage Advisory Committee, and
Oxford Creative Connections.
TOURISM OXFORD
LINKS:
www.woodstockbadmintonclub.org
www.tillsonburg.ca
Mark
Schadenberg, Sales
Representative
Senior
Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal
LePage Triland Realty
757
Dundas St, Woodstock
www.wesellwoodstock.com
(519)
537-1553, cell or text
Email:
mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter:
markroyallepage
Facebook:
Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland
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