The Kandy Garden Club is a social and sports club in
Kandy
Kandy ( si, මහනුවර ''Mahanuwara'', ; ta, கண்டி Kandy, ) is a major city in Sri Lanka located in the Central Province. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills ...
,
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
, which was established in 1878 for the exclusive use by
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
coffee planters to play
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
. It is one of the oldest operating sports clubs in the country and the second oldest in Kandy.
History
The club was opened in 1878 for the exclusive use by the British, particularly planters wanting to play tennis.
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Features
The club is located at the south-eastern end of Kandy Lake
Kandy Lake ( si, බෝගම්බර වැව/ කිරි මූද), also known as Kiri Muhuda or the Sea of Milk, is an artificial lake in the heart of the hill city of Kandy, Sri Lanka, built in 1807 by King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe next ...
, adjacent to the E. L. Senanayake Children's Park. It has four floodlit hardcourt
A hardcourt (or hard court) is a surface or floor on which a sport is played, most usually in reference to tennis courts. It is typically made of rigid materials such as asphalt or concrete, and covered with acrylic resins to seal the surface and ...
s. Other facilities include Billiards
Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as .
There are three major subdivisions of ...
, Snooker
Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...
, Table Tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...
and Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
. One of the club's billiard tables dates back to 1913, the table was manufactured by John W. Roberts
John Wendell Roberts (January 1, 1921 – January 8, 1999) was a United States Air Force general and commander of the Air Training Command with headquarters at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. He had a bachelor of science degree from Minnesot ...
and Company, and has been preserved in its original condition.
Billiards champions Paul Mifsudy, Norman Dangley, were among others invited to play exhibition matches at the Club table. In 1989 the second match of the first snooker test series between Sri Lanka and Pakistan was played at the club.
See also
* List of Sri Lankan gentlemen's clubs
This is a list of gentlemen's clubs in Sri Lanka, including those no longer functioning and from the further regions of British ruled Sri Lanka and those formed after British ruled.
Gentlemen's Clubs
{, class="wikitable sortable" , style="te ...
References
External links
Kandy Garden Club website
{{Kandy landmarks, state=collapsed
1878 establishments in Ceylon
Tennis venues in Sri Lanka
Organizations established in 1878
Buildings and structures in Kandy
Sports venues in Central Province, Sri Lanka