Welwyn RFC

Welwyn Rugby Football Club (Commonly abbreviated as Welwyn RFC) is an English rugby union club playing in the eighth tier of the league pyramid.

Club Honours

History

The club was originally formed during the depression years, in 1931, as Welwyn (East), after a number of Welsh from the valleys and Scots from the border woolen mills arrived in town to work in the local hosiery factory or in factories such as Murphy Radio, and they formed a rugby club which played on various pitches on the east side of town. The first President was a retired Irish army officer, Major C D Ross.

Welwyn (East) was the second rugby club in Welwyn Garden City, after Mid Herts, which was formed in the mid-1920s and composed mainly of players from the West side of town. They had a pitch at Handside Lane but no clubhouse, only a small changing hut with a crude bath. In 1938, Welwyn (East) moved to share pitches with Mid Herts at Handside Lane.

During World War II both clubs closed down and, following the war, only Welwyn (East) restarted, and was renamed Welwyn RFC. They remained at Handside Lane, which still had no clubhouse, and, as a result, all entertaining was carried out at local pubs. In 1952, a hut was purchased from a local chicken hatchery for £300 and dismantled, moved across town and re-erected by a team of players during the summer.

Welwyn

Coordinates: 51°49′52″N 0°12′54″W / 51.831°N 0.215°W / 51.831; -0.215

Welwyn /ˈwɛlɪn/ is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The parish also includes the villages of Digswell and Oaklands. It is sometimes called Old Welwyn to distinguish it from the newer settlement of Welwyn Garden City, about a mile to the south, though many residents object to the suggestion of inferiority or irrelevance that tends to be implied by the moniker "Old".

Etymology

The name is derived from Old English welig meaning "willow", referring to the trees that nestle on the banks of the River Mimram that flows through the village. The name itself is an evolution from weligun, the dative form of the word, and so is more precisely translated as "at the willows", unlike nearby Willian which is likely to mean simply "the willows". In having its name derived from welig rather than sealh (the more commonly cited Old English word for willow), Welwyn perhaps shares an etymology with the estate of Heligan in Cornwall whose name is derived from helygen, the Cornish word for willow.

Welwyn (disambiguation)

Welwyn is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England.

Welwyn may also relate to: