It is believed back in history that Elizabeth the First gave this silver arrow to Cambridge
University to commemorate a sports trophy. Back in the 1600s there was a family living
in the village of Scorton: there were two sons that went to Cambridge, one of those
sons, actually won the arrow and brought it home to the village of Scorton. Later on in
the 1600s, some friends got together and competed for this arrow in an archery competition.
After that date the arrow has had a little bit of a chequered history really; it has
been competed for annually; the arrow has been lost; it’s been shot from a bow; its
been found; its been repaired and now it is here today, to be presented to the winner
of the shoot today. The shoot in modern day times is competed at 100 yards and shooting
takes places both ways - so two arrows from each archer are shot up the field, those arrows
are retrieved, and then they are shot down the field at another set of targets. The winner
of the arrow is the first archer to actually hit and pierce the black three inch diameter
spot within the centre of the target. The history of the arrow, and one of the rules
that is within the society is that the archery competition and the shoot for the arrow must
be held within the boundaries of Yorkshire. So if anyone wins the arrow that doesn’t reside
in Yorkshire, then that person must arrange for the shoot to be held within the boundaries
of Yorkshire. One of the shoots’ traditions stems from many many years ago where shillings
used to be used to pay and to collect for the various scores on the target. Modern day
times we’ve gone to decimalisation and now it is five pences that we use. So when archers
shoot their arrows into the different colours of the target, they get paid out, or have
got to pay according to those colours. So if they get a gold, then they receive 10 pence,
which is two five pence pieces. If they shoot an arrow into the red, blue or black; they receive
five pence; and if they score, or shoot an arrow into the white, then they have got to
pay five pence. If an arrow goes into the green, or doesn’t hit the scoring zone,
then nothing is paid either way. In the early years of the competition obviously the type
of bow that was actually shot, was the longbow, the traditional longbow; and since the 1960s
1970s that’s developed into the composite recurve bow. So there are a mixture of those
bow types of the competitors that are shooting. In the main, the majority of the archers,
that actually take part, do carry the traditional longbow. And certainly in the last five years,
the longbow men have certainly won the arrow more times than the recurve bow.
The longbows are a traditional piece of equipment that normally was made from yew and the strings
were made from whatever they could get hold of. But nowadays, like this longbow here,
its got osage in - which is the dark wood - its got bamboo in it, which is the centre,
and the front is hickory. And a lot of the bows are now laminated with several laminations:
sometimes up to seven laminations which make them a lot faster to shoot. Far better than
the longbows they had in the olden days which you couldn’t leave strung-up like this,
because they tend to… the power would be lost. So you had to unstring them every time
you shot them. So what is the string made of on this one? The string on this one is
made of Fastflight, which is… it doesn’t stretch as much as the normal strings as Dacron,
and it allows a better cast on the bow. Careful I don’t miss me shot! The arrows: these
are made out of sitka spruce. The fletchings are feathers - with the cock feather, in this
case, marked with a little white splodge on the end. And the knots are plastic and the
piles are brass. And you try to make these as light as possible: these are barrelled
to make them more efficient in the air. Five sixteenths in the centre and nine thirty twos
each end.
The Society of Archers is made up of those competitors in that particular year.
So whoever enters the shoot becomes a member of the Society of the Arrow for that particular
year. The only person that holds office within the Society, is the Clerk to the Society of
which I currently hold office, and this is the badge of office that I currently hold.
And it is my responsibility, duty, to assist the winner of the arrow in setting-up and
organising the following year’s event. Also within the trophies of the Society is the
Horn Spoon - again it’s first recorded back in 1830. This is actually presented during
the day to the ‘Worst White’ on the last end. One of the other trophies’ the Society
has is the Scorton Bugle. This is awarded to the archer that first hits the red zone
of the target. Now, he is called the Lieutenant of the Arrow and he assists the Captain of
the Arrow, that’s the winner of the Scorton Arrow, in sorting out the shoot for the following
year. Ever since the shoot started, the scores and the meetings are recorded in parchment
and latterly in these books. That can be seen that the archers present and shooting on that
particular day, sign the relevant records. And then it is documented what score each
person has obtained during that year. These are kept up-to-date each year, and the Society
gets a calligrapher to do the relevant record taking.