Bocce and Croquet on the Lawn:
Cocktails and competition with friends

A perfect spring or summer evening might be the best time to just enjoy the outdoors at SpringHouse. We invite you to play a little bocce or croquet any evening the restaurant is open. The "courts" are setup on the front lawn and waiting for you. Bring a few friends and enjoy cocktails and appetizers while you play. Then stay for a while and take in a great dinner and a breathtaking sunset.

A whole lot more about bocce
and croquet

Bocce
Bocce is a precision sport belonging to the boules sport family, closely related to bowls and pétanque with a common ancestry from ancient games played in the Roman Empire. Developed into its present form in Italy (where it is called Bocce, the plural of the Italian word boccia which means "bowl"), it is played around Europe and also in countries that have received Italian migrants, including Australia, North America and South America (where it is known as bochas; "bolas criollas" in Venezuela). Initially played amongst the migrants themselves, bocce slowly became more popular with their descendants and the wider community. The game is also well-known in Serbia as boćanje (боћање) and in Croatia as boćanje, bućanje, or balote, depending on the region. In France the sport is known as Boule Lyonnaise.

The great thing about bocce is that it can be played almost anywhere there is open space.  This includes grassy surfaces such as a front lawn or back yard, dirt surfaces, sandy surfaces such as the beach, and even paved surfaces like parking lots.  The places that you can play bocce are only limited to your imagination.  Try playing bocce on a surface with hills or slopes to add a new element of strategy to your game.

Bocce is played with eight large balls and one smaller ball (called the pallino). Divide the bocce balls evenly between the players.  You will notice that your bocce ball set has balls with several different colors or designs.  Ideally, each bocce player will use balls from the set that are unique in design or color from all the other balls in play. This is helpful in distinguishing your bocce balls from those of another player.

At random, choose a player to throw the pallino.  After the pallino is thrown, the same player will throw his first bocce ball.  The purpose of the game is to get your bocce balls as close as possible to the pallino.  After the first player has thrown his first bocce ball, he is considered "inside" because his ball is closer to the pallino than any of the competitors balls.  All other players are considered "outside."  Whenever a player is considered "inside," he will forfeit his turn throwing bocce balls.  All "outside" players will take turns throwing their bocce balls until one of theirs gets closer to the pallino than the "inside" player. 

After all players have thrown their bocce balls, the player that is "inside" will be awarded points.  One point will be awarded to this player for every ball that is closer to the pallino than his closest competitor's ball.  After the points are awarded, the frame is completed. 

Start a new frame by electing a new person to throw the pallino and to throw the first bocce ball.  A game is won when a player reaches 16 points.  Play as many frames as necessary until a player reaches this point level. Of course, this point level can be be decreased or increased depending on time constraints between players.

Croquet
In the book Queen of Games: The History of Croquet author Nicky Smith presents two theories of the origin of the game of croquet that took England by storm in the 1860s. The first is that the ancestral game was introduced to Britain from France during the reign of Charles II of England, and was played under the name of paille maille or pall mall, derived ultimately from Latin words for "ball and mallet". This was the explanation given in the ninth edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, dated 1877. Many writers have accepted this theory but there seems to be little evidence that the game either resembled croquet or influenced its rules; indeed, there is apparently a publication by one Dr. Richard Prior dated 1872 that concludes that the two games are very different.

The second theory, which seems to have stronger credentials, is that croquet arrived from Ireland during the 1850s, perhaps after being brought there from Brittany where a similar game was played on the beaches. Records show the similar game of "crookey" being played at Castlebellingham in 1834, which was introduced to Galway in 1835 and played on the Bishop's palace garden, and in the same year, to the genteel Dublin suburb of Dun Laoghaire (then Kingstown) where it was first spelled "croquet".
John Jaques, of the manufacturer Jaques of London that still supplies a significant share of croquet equipment used today, apparently claimed in a letter to Arthur Lillie in 1873 that he had seen the game played in Ireland and, "I made the implements and published directions (such as they were) before Mr. Spratt [who is also claimed to have first written down the rules] introduced the subject to me". Whatever the truth of the matter, Jaques certainly played an important role in popularizing the game, publishing editions of the rules in 1857, 1860, and 1864.

Regardless when and by what route it reached the United Kingdom and the British colonies in its recognizable form, croquet is, like pall mall, trucco, jeu de mail and het kolven, clearly a derivative of ground billiards, which was popular in Western Europe back to at least the 14th century, with roots in classical antiquity.

Croquet became highly popular as a social pastime in England during the 1860s; by 1867, Jaques had printed 65,000 copies of his Laws and Regulations of the game. It quickly spread to other Anglophile countries, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States and Canada. No doubt one of the attractions was that the game could be played by both sexes; this also ensured a certain amount of adverse comment.

By the late 1870s, however, croquet had been eclipsed by another fashionable game, tennis, and many of the newly-created croquet clubs, including the All-England club at Wimbledon, converted some or all of their lawns into tennis courts. There was a revival in the 1890s, but from then onwards, croquet was always a minority sport, with national individual participation amounting to a few thousand players. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club still has a croquet lawn, but has not hosted any significant tournaments. The English headquarters for the game is now in Cheltenham.

We encourage people to get their teams together now for these two classic games, and we look forward to much friendly competiveness to come.