The Backwell Playing Fields were given to the Village of Backwell by Theodore and his sister Isabel Robinson, who then lived at West Town House. The Fields were called the West Backwell Playing Fields. The Robinsons paid for tennis courts and a bowling green to be laid out in the Fields and a grand opening ceremony by the Marquis of Bath was held on the 6th June 1929. At this time, the playing fields measured some 6.5 acres up as far as the quarry stones at the end of the car park next to ABUFC.
The West Backwell Playing Fields Association offered annual membership to everyone in the village at a modest fee (in the mid 1930s the charge was 2/6d for adults and 1/- for Juniors under 14, and there were 306 Adult members and 112 Junior members). In May 1945 Theodore purchased a further 11 acres and gave it to the Playing Fields Association (this is the larger area of the fields with all the Junior Football pitches, the playground, Scout hut and other buildings).
The Robinsons hoped that:
“the playing field would be the means of bringing together the people of the parish”.
After Theodore’s death in 1959 and a struggle for funds in the 1960s, eventually in 1967 the Parish Council stepped in and the Backwell Recreation Association was formed in 1970 – a public charity which included three Parish Councillors as Custodian Trustees.
In 1996 the Charity Commissioners came up with a solution to make the Playing Fields a totally independent private charity and they devised a new scheme called the Backwell Playing Fields Charity, under which the Playing Fields still operate today.