About Us

Irvine Toxophilites (Irvine Tox ) is a warm and welcoming local Archery Sports club run by Archers for people who are interested in Archery and Love to shoot Bows.

We have Archery GB trained and registered Coaches and the club runs regular get into archery beginners’ courses as well as guidance and more advanced training to assist in an archer’s progression helping them to achieve their goals.

We have are a fully inclusive club and we have archers covering a wide spectrum of ages and background shooting a variety of bow styles from traditional wooden bows such as English/Welsh Long bows, American Flat and Horse bows) through to modern composite bows such as the Olympic Recurve and modern Barebow.

The Collins Dictionary has the meaning of the word ‘Toxophilites’ as student of archery.

We have a long and Illustrious history based in the town of Irvine Scotland with one of the first documented references to the club being in the manuscript ‘the Marchmont or St Ronan Arrows by John Burnett & George R Dalgleish’ this book indicates that the club existed before 1814

The general revival of archery in England dates from about 1780 (Waring 1832, 8). It reached Scotland in the early decades of the 19th century. For example, the Paisley Arrow dates from 1806, and the Irvine Toxophilites were revived in 1814 (Buchanan 1979, 25, 14). Archery was given a boost by the appointment of the Royal Company as the King’s Bodyguard for Scotland when King George IV visited Edinburgh in 1822.  One reason for the sport’s popularity was that men and women could compete together.

The Badminton Library ARCHERY By C.J. Longman and Col. H. Walrond, 1894. Has a section detailing a competition called the papingo or popinjay held by Kilwinning archers, shooting was conducted at the abbeys north-west tower rising to a height of 105 feet. From its summit the wooden figure of the popinjay, painted green and red, supported on the upturned end of an iron spike attached to a pole, several feet in length, was projected into the air. It was then shot at from below.

The town of Irvine has a similar competition as the papingo. The archers there, seem to have formed themselves into a regular society around 1814, when the Irvine Toxophilites was constituted a body The most important occurrence in its history was the fact that its members, to the number of sixty, served as bodyguard to the Queen of Beauty, Lady Seymour, at the famous Eglinton Tournament in 1839. In recognition of their services on that occasion Lord Eglinton presented the society with a challenge prize, a gold belt and quiver set, Besides shooting at butts–the mark in their case being a paper twelve inches across, divided into six circles, while that in use at Kilwinning was nine, divided into three– the Irvine Toxophilites shot at an ‘elevated target.’ A small target, eighteen inches across, was fixed to the top of a pole  over thirty feet in height, and was shot at from a distance of forty yards.