The new bowls season is underway and has been since the third weekend of April.

The sport, which dates back at least to the 13th century, has long been a popular one in Brighton and Hove.

There are bowls clubs at Kingsway in Hove, Hangleton Bowls Club in Knoll Park, in Ditchling Road in Hollingbury, amongst others.

In today’s Timeout, we are looking back at around 80 years of bowls in the city.

Wartime bowls players are pictured here wearing gas masks.

The year was circa 1940.

Bowls is normally played outside, especially when the weather is fine, but it can be played indoors as well.

Also pictured here is Councillor Colin-Jones playing a game of indoor bowls.

Sports minister Neil Macfarlane is also pictured here playing indoor bowls at the Indoor Bowls Club in Crawley in 1983.

Mr Macfarlane was a Conservative politician and he was elected MP for Sutton and Cheam in 1974.

He held the ministerial post for environment and sport from 1981 to 1985.

The former mayor of Hove, Councillor Norman Freedman, is pictured here playing bowls at Hove Bowling Club.

He was the second Jewish mayor of Hove from 1969 to 1970.

Before this, he was president of Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce from 1968 to 1969.

The Hove Lawns Bowling Club, also known as the Hove and Kingsway Bowling Club, is photographed here when it flooded in 1990, with a man posing on the submerged bowling green.

Also shown here is a photograph of a man bowling in 1937 in front of an audience.