A thorough guide for Beginners wanting to start Archery in the UK.

It’s easier than you might think to get into archery as a beginner in the UK. We’ve put together the definitive guide for how beginners can get into the hobby via a number of methods.

At Archery Guide, our goal is to objectively source for you the best information available. We will look to continually update this post as we learn more about where you can practice Archery as a beginner in the UK.

First stop for beginners: make sure this is right for you

Our first tip for getting started in archery is this. Don’t spend money on archery equipment, courses or coaching before you’re confident that this is a hobby you will enjoy.

Look first at the reasons why people do archery and what to expect from it as a sport. It might feel to you that the quickest way to get involved is to just buy yourself an archery set. However there are plenty of routes where you can ‘try before you buy’.

We actually recommend not getting a bow or any archery equipment before you have first done the appropriate research. Either by reading this website or visiting your local club or shop to see how much you enjoy the hobby.

If you do decide to buy, we would also suggest ‘going budget‘ to begin with. This will help you to get a feel for what you like and don’t like. You can then make a more informed decision later down the line when you look to upgrade your bow. That being said, the below guide will offer routes for both the casual archer as well as those looking to get into the sport in a serious manner.

Learning archery at home as a beginner

The first and most obvious route for your beginner’s archery journey is to just teach yourself!

There are resources to learn about archery all over the internet, from YouTube videos and forums to online bogs. This website being one of them! There are also tons of printed books about archery. Books work well as a complimentary resource, to confirm things you saw online or from your instructor.

There are many technical terms which this website will attempt to unpack. However, the more sources of reference you have, the better.

The very basics of archery theory are best learned as quickly as possible. You need to understand what terms like ‘draw length’ mean and what the different bow types are.

However the process of shooting the bow (or what’s called the shot sequence) is something you will have to physically practice to get right. All the theory in the world won’t help you if you can’t regularly practice your form! So this website can only take you so far. You’ll need an archery club or a safe space to practice archery.

If you want to jump ahead, you can look at the theory of the shot sequence now. This will be enough to get you started so you can practice shooting in a safe space.

If you want to be self-taught, make sure you correctly assess your form

To teach yourself without a coach or at a club, you must make sure you’re using the right technique. If you’re not able to assess your form, you might learn bad habits that will be difficult to un-learn later.

The easiest way to monitor your form is by recording yourself shooting. Watch the footage back and see if you are applying the theory on this website correctly. You can also upload the footage to archery forums and have your form peer reviewed.

Make sure that you do not overdo it with practice. Give yourself considerable breaks between shootings. Practicing whilst tired will lead to sloppy technique and injuries.

How do you know if your form is improving when you practice alone? Well archery is about repetition. If you are hitting the target 99 times out of 100, then you are most likely doing something right. But if you’re struggling to shoot consistently despite months of practice, it might be time to get some feedback or assessment.

It’s also important if you are going to practice shooting at home, that you have an appropriate area in which to do it. Once you have an appropriate space, make sure you’re aware of the laws around practicing archery in the UK. The safest bet for teaching yourself archery would be to shoot indoors.

Of course, you can also establish which archery ranges or archery clubs are near you, and practice there! The level of fees involved for using the space will vary from club to club. We’ll go over this below.

Go to a drop-in class or ‘taster session’ at a nearby Archery Range

For a UK archery beginner like yourself to practice at an Archery Club, you’ll often need the club’s membership or one from Archery GB. Unless of course if that club also offers drop-in/ ‘have-a-go’ / or ‘taster’ classes for beginners.

Archery clubs might also have separate ‘beginner courses’ (which we will detail in the next section). However these are often longer and more expensive than taster classes. How do you know if you want to commit to a full year of a club’s membership or multiple months of training lessons when you’re just starting out?

That’s why some Archery clubs offer these ‘trial days’ or taster sessions. They’re the best option for those wishing to test out the Archery club without full commitment. However these are often infrequent and hard to find amongst the traditional archery clubs. Archery is not a well funded sport in the UK. Many clubs and groups are volunteer-led, so don’t really advertise themselves as much as they could.

Luckily, several more modernised clubs have opened in recent years which facilitate these types of classes more regularly.

These ranges will often lend you the equipment for the lesson. They’ll teach you what type of bow works for you, and you can test out a variety of them. This is really the best option for you to ‘try archery before you buy’.

It’s worth noting that whilst drop-in lessons are cheaper, memberships to Archery Clubs will be cheaper in the long run. So, if after the first time you try a drop-in class, you know you want to do loads more – it might be more financially prudent to get a club membership. Rather than paying for several more drop-in classes!

So let’s review some of the most popular drop-in, taster or ‘have a go’ classes below.

What are the best Archery drop-in classes for beginners?

Here’s some of the best beginner archery drop-in classes in London:

Here’s some of the best beginner archery classes in Yorkshire:

Here’s some of the best beginner archery classes in the South West

Here’s the best beginner archery classes in the Midlands:

Here’s the best beginner archery classes near Manchester and Liverpool:

Start Archery Week

Anytime between April to May is officially ‘Start Archery week’ in the UK! It’s a week in which ArcheryGB clubs in the UK are encouraged to offer free archery classes. You can find out everything you need to know about Start Archery week here.

National Archery Events

NationalArchery.co.uk are the UK’s largest voucher provider for drop-in Archery class’s.

They partner up with Archery clubs across the country. These are often clubs that don’t typically run drop-in classes through their own organisation. But with the vouchers on offer here, you can turn up and be guaranteed an hour’s worth of training.

Overall it’s a great directory for archery drop-in classes that is even better than the ArcheryGB list. The downside is that these classes are typically much more expensive and shorter than the list we’ve provided.

The instructors and type of class will vary from location to location but expect an average price of £25-£35 for an hour’s worth of Archery.

Do a beginner course at your local Archery club

Most Archery clubs require memberships to be able to use their ranges and equipment regularly. This can feel like a difficult commitment to make before you really know the club.

Not all coaches are the same, so there’s a risk in committing to one club too soon. Thankfully, in addition to the above drop-in-classes, nearly all Archery Clubs offer ‘induction courses’, or courses for beginners.

Most UK Archery clubs will also offer discounts on full memberships if you complete a beginner course. Courses often take place over multiple weeks and can vary in cost between £70 – £200. It will be a great opportunity to test out entry level bows within the recurve, compound and barebow fields.

Once you are at intermediate level, you can shoot at almost any archery club in the UK alongside an Archery GB membership (see below). Before our list of some of the best UK archery clubs, we’ve listed additional resources for discovering clubs near you.

Archery GB

Archery GB is the governing body for the type of archery which is seen at the Olympics – target archery.

It has 45’000+ members and provides support on a national level to clubs and schools. You can use their website’s club finder to find those clubs which fall under the banner of this organisation.

All clubs within this organisation focus on the recurve bow, as that is more common for GB Olympic participation. It’s only by joining an Archery GB affiliated club that you can gain qualifications and selection to the GBR squad at major competitions such as the Olympics or World Archery Championships.

Completing a beginner’s course at an Archery GB club allows you to become a member of this organisation (often around £54 a year) which includes a membership card and access to most Archery GB clubs. If you really want to become a pro archer, you can join the Archery GB performance development program.

Note: Archery GB is the overall UK body but will have a different name for each home nation. English Archery Foundation (EAF), Scottish Archery Association (SAA), Welsh Archery Association (WAA) and Northern Ireland Archery Society (NIAS).

National Field Archery Society

The NFAS is the governing body for Field Archery. This is a different type of archery game than target archery, and might be better suited once you have tested out target archery a bit first. However you can use the NFA’s website to see where a local club under that organisation might be near to you. The IFAA and EFAA are similar organisations. They all help to define the rules implemented by field archery tournaments in the UK and beyond.

World Archery

World Archery are the international governing body. They provide most of the organisation around major sporting events such as the Olympics and World Archery Championships. There are more than 150 countries which are members of this organisation, including Archery GB.

There’s over 1200 clubs in the UK and growing – our aim is to trial out a number of these clubs and bring you personal reviews on them so that you can know which is the best in your area. Below are some of the ones we’ve tried so far.

What are some of the best UK Archery clubs for beginner courses?

In the UK, all Archery Clubs will operate a little differently to each other. Some might specialise in one type of archery game, for example. You’ll have to find out what your local club offers.

Whilst more expensive, beginner courses often allow time for the coaches to tailor the sessions directly to you. They’re often over a number of weeks, which helps build in muscle memory with the bow. The best thing is that by the end of the course, you’ll be guaranteed to hit the target. You’ll often be able to continue your practice at a discounted rate once the course is finished, too.

Here’s our list of some of the best beginner courses in the UK for archery:

Southampton Archery Club

Southampton. Considered one of the largest archery clubs in the UK. Affiliated with archery gb, they offer beginner courses every month across three Saturday mornings. £60 for adults and £50 for juniors. Check their website for availability each month – but hurry, spaces run out quickly!

Brontë Archers

Bradford, Yorkshire. One of the most prestigious archery clubs in the UK. They charge just £60 for 12 hours of lessons by qualified Archery GB coaches. We nearly put it in the drop-in section for value alone, but this is certainly a commitment. However, you won’t be disappointed with the quality!

London Archers

London. £54 adult fee for the year, allowing use of range and equipment anytime in the year. That’s great value if you want to just pay a flat fee and use the club as often as you want. They also have drop-in introductory classes in the summer.

Archery Fit

London. Membership is free, as long as you’re experienced or you have completed one of their beginner courses, which is PAYG up to £150 for 6 lessons.

Once you’re a member, you can have a brief induction session and then it is just £15 per session to shoot for 2 hours on your own timeframe. You can also shoot unlimited for a month for £125. They have a huge range that can allow up to 20 people to shoot at once!

Experience Archery

London. £125 for 5 weeks of recurring one hour lessons at the same time as the drop in class. After the course you can shoot at the club as an ‘experienced archer’, or if already a member of ArcheryGB. These shooting sessions are then just £10 a session (£8 juniors) if renting and £8 (£6) if bringing own equipment.

Merlin Archery

Loughborough. £99 beginner course that lasts for six weekly sessions, two hours long. They have every bow type as this is also a chain store that sells equipment (see Archery Shop list below!)

Assheton Bowmen

Manchester. £65 beginner course that lasts for six weekly sessions, 2 hours long on Tuesday. Provides recurve bow and equipment. 14+ or else require an adult present. Certificate on completion allows you to be non-beginner and shoot at any archery club – including this one! Great value and well rated (5 star on google)

Bowmen Of Lytchett

Dorset. £70 for full-day sessions across two weekends. Check their website to see the next dates available as they only run them a few times a year. However the level of training is top notch!

Phoenix Bowmen

Halifax. £60 for seniors and £40 for juniors. Across four weekly sessions. They have no fixed dates in the calendar and you must email them from the address in their website. Once they have enough interest, they’ll put together a bespoke course.

Selby Archers

Selby. £50 for 6 x 2 hour sessions held on Monday evenings. They run them every month but you’ll need to contact them directly for the exact dates!

Aim 4 Sport

Bedfordshire. £80 for seniors and £75 for juniors. Small intimate groups taught by archery gb coaches. Courses are not that regular so email them directly to find out!

Get an Archery coach / instructor

Having someone personally train you in the ways of Archery can rapidly enhance your skills at beginner level. Depending on how good the coach is, you could become intermediate level within a very short space of time.

Another plus point to getting an archery coach is that they’ll make sure you start off with the right form. So you won’t learn any bad habits early on. They can also help to identify issues or make suggestions on what is inhibiting your form from succeeding. A freelance coach can also come directly to your home, or whatever environment that you want to shoot in. So there probably isn’t a better path to take if you want to really take the sport seriously.

The main downside of course to 1-to-1 coaching is that it is expensive. It’s also difficult to find freelance coaches that are of a genuinely high level. If the coach is not of an Olympic level or has top-tier coaching qualifications, they may not necessarily be worth their cost. Having a coach can also feel a little restrictive if you want to learn in your own way or at your own pace.

If you regularly attend an Archery club, you would be better off getting coaching and specialist advice from one of the instructors there. This would be better than finding a freelance coach online, because at an archery club you can get a feel for how much you like the coach first, before asking for specific tutelage.

However if you’re very keen for private coaching, there are quite a few options online. We’ve had a look at the options and created a guideline below.

What to expect from an Archery coach?

Here’s a few things you should learn about a private coach in the UK before you decide to hire them:

• Make sure they’re qualified as a coach. Great archers often try to become coaches without actually understanding how to coach. It’s not good enough to just be a good archer, you need to understand how to teach someone else. Typically, UK coaches will have Archery GB badges to show they are qualified.
  
• Make sure they’re Olympic standard. There’s a ton of archery coaches in the UK who have formerly participated in, trained with, or at least taught GB Olympic level archers. So don’t bother wasting money on private coaching with anyone who isn’t at that level!
  
• Make sure they offer form guidance. Sometimes, what you need isn’t a coach to just sit there and make small comments whilst you shoot for an hour. A more effective use of your money is to practice yourself, record it, and then send a video of your shot sequence to your coach. For this they should have a different fee to their regular coaching sessions. Make sure they give you this option so that you’re not tied in to anything you don’t need!
  
• Price ranges should be: £15 for form assessment, £25-35 for an hour of coaching (with access to a range) or £20 for group coaching.

Visit an Archery Shop

If an archery club is not nearby or that feasible to reach, the next best option is an archery shop. As a beginner the main objective is to get advice from a real person. There are many brick and mortar shops in the UK that sell archery equipment and will have the expertise to help you get started in archery.

Some archery shops will also have their own practice ranges, to offer coaching or lessons. If not, they will at least definitely have advice on where would be best for you to practice. They’ll also be able to offer you guidance on which archery equipment to buy as a beginner.

What are the best UK Archery shops for beginners?

You should be aware that some archery shops might try to upsell you certain stock. Whilst staff can appear genuine and helpful, they are most likely trying to get you to purchase from them. They might even try to persuade you to go after their most expensive items. You have to be wary of these tactics when you visit an archery shop. Especially if you are trying to buy on a budget!

However, overall we have found archery shop owners and staff to be very knowledgeable and helpful. They’re always passionate about archery, which is the main thing!

So we’ve put together a quick list of some of the most trusted Archery Shops for beginners in the UK, for you to visit if it’s convenient!

Pheonix Archery (Burnley, Lancashire)

If you live in the North of the UK, Phoenix Archery is worth travelling for. It’s well reviewed and their equipment is very reasonably priced. They have both a 10m and a 25m archery range on site, with a variety of targets to shoot at! This is both useful for when picking a bow, as well as presenting a few options for beginner lessons. At the time of writing, an hour ‘taster lesson’ is just £15 for adults and doesn’t require you having to buy any equipment. Rated 5* on google, with exceptional user feedback – this would be a great starting point!

Merlin Archery (in Loughborough, Chelmsford and County Durham)

Merlin Archery is the biggest and most well-known Archery-shop chain in the UK. The Loughborough branch even has its own indoor range for you to try out your bows or practice with rented equipment. They also offer beginner courses at this branch, reasonably priced at £99 for 6 weeks.

Despite a few bad reviews for their online store, you can be confident that at their physical stores, you will receive top-end customer service. They will help you fix your bow, give advice on your next one, and offer some of the best prices in the UK for beginner recurve bows.

Parris Archery (Ipswich)

This is a great independent store if you are able to get to it. It’s run by a husband and wife team who love archery and love teaching archery beginners how to shoot. They offer beginner lessons in store and are one of the few stores that won’t try to upsell you anything, but just make sure you get exactly what you need as a beginner.

You can also get 1-to-1 coaching within their own indoor range for £35 an hour, which is a good fee when considering you get individual attention as a beginner for the whole lesson. They also of course sell good equipment, at reasonable prices.

KG Archery (Nottingham)

One of the best archery shops in the north of England – this one is worth travelling to even if you live a few hours away. Whilst they don’t offer beginner lessons, they do have some of the best equipment for beginners in the UK! With plenty of supportive and friendly staff to boot. You can’t go wrong with these guys!

Wales Archery (near Newport, South Wales)

Probably the biggest archery shop in Wales, they have a range for beginners to try out equipment, so this will be the best place to visit as a beginner if you want to try-before-you-buy. Their staff give great advice in an amazing location of a renovated old church!

Quicks Archery (Hampshire and near Bournemouth)

This well-known online archery shop also has two physical stores on the south coast. So if you live south or south-west of England, these are your best bet for both beginner’s equipment and great advice on how to start your journey into archery. Appointments are necessary to test out and buy equipment in store, as they want to make sure you know what you’re getting, which is a nice touch!

Silver Archery (London)

The only archery shop within the M25, these guys have a bit of a monopoly on archery enthusiasts within London. However, they are more orientated toward compound and traditional bows, with just a few recurve bows in-store. They also don’t offer beginner lessons and have some bad reviews online around their staff – but beggars can’t be choosers, unless you want to travel well outside of London!

Try Archery at an activity centre

If you’re planning on taking a UK vacation or ‘staycation’ soon, it’s always worth considering activity centres near you and whether can they offer an ‘archery experience.’

Now the expertise at these locations won’t match up with the instructors at a proper Archery GB affiliated club, and the prices might also be a little higher. However it could be more convenient for you depending on your location!

Here’s a quick list of some activity centres which offer archery in the UK:

Hoseasons (multiple locations) these are holiday parks, typically based in lodges in remote woods in the UK. They have a partnership with ‘GO Active’ to offer archery experiences at 18 different locations. If you fancy a break in the woods at reasonable pricing, you can freely practice your archery here!

Alfresco Adventures (Lake District) if you’ve ever fancied visiting Ullswater on the famous lakes, or the Yorkshire Dales National Park – these guys have a host of outdoor activities for you to get your teeth into, including archery sessions.

Richardsons Holiday Park (Norfolk). Available to guests of the park, a free indoor Archery centre to practice your shooting!

Forest Holidays also include archery into a number of their wood-cabin destinations.

Loch Tay (Scotland). If you’ve ever wanted to visit the Scottish highlands and visit Lake Lochmond, then try out these fancy woodland acommodations and you can try a hand at archery as well!

National Trust also hosts archery events at different times of the year!

How can I get involved in university archery?

The UKSAA Club Directory provides everything you need to know regarding contact information for Universities in the UK that provide archery clubs, and how you can get one set up at your University if there isn’t one!

Look up your local archery group on Facebook

As mentioned, for some people who are quite remote in the countryside, finding an archery club can be difficult. Local clubs lack a strong online presence, making it hard for beginners to find information on them. Plus, Archery GB’s strict regulations limit opportunities for new clubs to operate. This is in addition to the safety requirements and lack of funding overall for the UK archery scene.

That’s why sometimes, the best bet is to form or join an independent archery group. Volunteers who may have ArcheryGB qualification sometimes setup their own communities to help and support one another in practicing archery.

Try going onto Facebook or local pages on your social media accounts and see if you can find any archery groups in your area. You may be surprised this is often how you will find your local club – one that is not advertised on google!

That’s it!

That’s the end of our comprehensive list of where you can try out archery as a beginner in the UK, but the best practice is to always get networking with other archers and find out from their own experiences. Sooner or later you’ll have enough practice as a beginner to know how best to practice archery and improve your skills!

Happy Shooting!