WELLS City Archers had a wonderful day at The Bishop’s Palace on Saturday, July 26, for the fourth annual Maria Eden Archery Tournament.
The Maria Eden Tournament is completely unique to Wells City Archers and The Bishop’s Palace, and is named after Maria Eden, fifth daughter of Robert John Eden, third Baron Auckland, and Bishop of Bath and Wells from 1854 to 1869. Maria is credited with being a keen archer and a longbow enthusiast.
The tournament is held in two sessions (morning and afternoon) and comprises of a ‘Palace Round’ – four dozen arrows at 20 yards on a 60cm target, which was devised especially for the Maria Eden. Competitors can use a traditional wooden longbow or a modern Olympic recurve bow, either ‘barebow’ or sighted.
This year there were 33 archers competing across the two sessions, with 11 gold, seven silver and four bronze medals being awarded across the different shooting categories (age, gender and bow type) at the end of the day.
Trophies for the overall winners of the four main categories were awarded to Clare Hudsmith (Young Archers champion), Jayson Nickholds (Barebow champion), Dave Hudsmith (Recurve champion) and Richard Gregory (Longbow champion).
Wells City Archers thanked The Bishop’s Palace for once again welcoming them back, and Indigo Archery for sponsoring the event by supplying the all-important targets, as well as running a Have a Go range for visitors to the Palace. For more on Wells City Archers, visit www.wellscityarchers.com
• Picture: Ghislain Taschini