DECLINE AND RESURRECTION
The sports closest to the original Olympics involved local villagers, but Dover also needed activities to attract the gentry, and so he arranged for there to be horse racing, hunting, and coursing. Gentry could participate personally in races or involve their grooms or stable staff. The course on which the races were held has now vanished under ploughed fields, but records speak of a narrow course of two and a half miles, thereby necessitating a series of heats with limited numbers of horses in each. Hunting, which was deemed to encompass warlike skills, would have involved hounds. It is probable that the prey, such as a fox, would have been captured in advance and then released; similarly, coursing would have involved captured hares, because it would have been unrealistic to assume that such prey would simply be available on a hill full of spectators. The hares would have probably been released for the greyhounds and harriers inside an area of grass enclosed by fences (known as ‘paddock hunting’). The aforementioned expensive silver prizes, which naturally encouraged the gentry, were a silver castle (for the owner of the winning horse) and a silver-studded collar for the winning greyhound.
Dancing took place for better-off onlookers, and to emphasise the event’s Greek origins, Homer himself put in an appearance as a blind harpist and there was a ‘Troy Town’ turf maze, which could include some dancing along its paths. Other entertainments included tents for card games – which also had the King’s approval – albeit played for low stakes.
The original Games came to an end with the English Civil War, with many who participated, of all classes, suffering disease, and loss of life or property. Dover was 60 when the war started and he probably stayed at home throughout. Unsurprisingly, he supported the King, with his son John being a captain of horse under Prince Rupert. He died in Barton-under-Heath at the age of 70, the year before Oliver Cromwell became Protector.
The ‘Olimpicks’ returned, along with other country celebrations, following the Restoration in 1660, although the exact date is unknown. But without Dover’s controlling hand they deteriorated over time, with general riot on occasion, becoming little better than drunken country festivals. The activities were of lesser status with, for example, a women’s race for the prize of a smock, a donkey race, cock fighting, bowling and blind man’s buff. RR Vyvyyan wrote that from 1846 onwards, the Games, instead of being decorously conducted as originally intended, became “the trysting place of all the lowest scum of the population which lived in the districts lying between Birmingham and Oxford.”
The enclosure of the common land on which the Games were held marked their
end in 1862. Ironically, this was around the time that William Penny Brookes was starting the Wenlock Games. Kingcombe Plain was fenced, enclosed and split between farmers and landowners. Only the section of hill with the large slope remained as pasture and woodland, and it is this that kept Dover’s name alive. When it was put up for sale for development in 1929, local artist Frederick Landseer Griggs outbid developers at auction, even though he could ill afford it. Subsequently, appeals raised funds for Dover’s Hill to be bought off Griggs and given to the National Trust. The Games were revived in 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain, and took place on the hill. They featured ‘equestrian sports’, boxing, tug of war, donkey races and foot races, together with modern games such as pillow fights, the greasy pole, horseshoe throwing, coconut shies and bowling for a pig.
But arguably the most popular survival was shin kicking.
Robert Dover himself was commemorated by a local rider dressed in historical costume on a horse. Unfortunately, a foot-and-mouth outbreak in 1952 and Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953 stalled the reintroduction. The Games reappeared in 1964 as part of the Scuttlebrook Wake, a torchlight procession, featuring Robert Dover on horseback, from the hill into Chipping Campden. Since then, the ‘Olimpicks’ take place on the Friday evening of Whitsun week, with the Robert Dover’s Games Society (formed in 1965) raising the necessary funds.
The Games have continued to evolve and have been augmented by gymkhana events, motorcycle displays and similar; with variations on a theme each year. The more bizarre include: dwile flonking, piano smashing, sack racing in huge sacks, parachute jumping, and morris dancing with a hobby horse. The Society has also created a mock castle in honour of Dover’s original. The current Games are a continuation of the early rural sporting events, and are determined by the Society with the local population and participants in mind. They combine informal, amateur sporting events for competitors, the majority of whom register on the night of the Games, with general entertainment and activities for visitors. In true amateur spirit, all events are free to enter. However, it should be noted that no alcohol is sold on the hill during the event!
The ‘Olimpicks’ now mark the end of the festival season in Chipping Campden, which includes an International Music Festival and a Literary Festival. The Scuttlebrook Wake takes place the following day; it is a street fair and procession with the crowning of the Scuttlebrook Queen, with fancy dress entrants and floats.
FINAL THOUGHTS
At the time of writing, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact sporting events across the world, and the Cotswold ‘Olimpick’ Games, having been cancelled
An advertisement for the 1822 Games, which by then had become a debased and rowdy affair. A poster for the 2018 games, featuring the then champion shin kicker.
in 2020 and 2021, will not return until next year at the earliest. It is interesting to note that it was not long after the return of the Games, with the Restoration of King Charles II, that England suffered the major pandemic of the Great Plague. Hopefully, the outcome of the current pandemic will not be as grim.
Robert Dover was a widely admired man whose benevolence and imagination made the Cotswold ‘Olimpick’ Games a renowned success. That he used the ancient Greek Olympics as inspiration to create an event which brought together all strata of society was exceptional, and it goes without saying that he must have been particularly canny in gaining royal support despite his own Catholic upbringing. Credit must go to the good people of Chipping Campden and the surrounding area for their efforts in keeping Dover’s ‘Olimpick’ flame burning while keeping true to his vision of “this mirth, this jollity”.
SOURCES
The main sources for this article were: ‘The First Ever English Olimpick Games’ by Celia Haddon (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004) and the Robert Dover’s Cotswold Olimpick Games website (www. olimpickgames.co.uk/). All quotes are from one of these sources unless otherwise stated.
NOTES 1 www.tvinsider.com/846314/tokyo-summer-olympics-2020-new-sports/
2 www.olimpickgames.co.uk/annalia-dubrensia
3 No doubt the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 aimed at blowing up James I while in the House of Lords influenced this state of affairs.
4 www.nationaltrust.org.uk/dovers-hill
5 Dwile flonking is an East Anglian pub sport involving two teams of 12 players, each taking a turn to dance around the other while attempting to avoid a beer-soaked dwile (cloth) thrown by the non-dancing team. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Dwile_flonking
ROB GANDY is a Visiting Professor at Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University and a regular contributor to FT. A lifelong fortean, he has eclectic interests in all things weird, including phantom hitchhikers, ghosts, strange sports and folk customs, time slips and synchronicities.