|
Sack races, shin kicking, and mis-spelled words. It may sound
like a scene from the school playground but it is actually
a countryside tradition dating back four hundred years. The
Cotswold Olympicks attract hundreds of crazy competitors
every year and thousands more people come to experience the
madness.
History of the Cotswold Olympicks
Dover Hill, where the games are held, is named after the
man who founded the games back in 1612. Robert Dover,
a Cambridge graduate - he may be clever but was obviously
quite crazy - was given permission by King James I to
hold the games which have been running ever since. Dover was
known as a fair and good-natured sportsman, and this outlook
continues in the games today. The original festival was intended
for farmhands to let their hair down after a hard spring preparing
the fields for the coming harvest. It is an event where the
local community went completely mad and it's still going strong
today. Mentioned by Shakespeare in the Merry Wives
of Windsor, the Cotswold Olimpicks is the second oldest
sports festival in the world.
Olympicks events
The most popular event remains the medieval-style violent
shin kicking contests. One local group's motto is:
"If it ain't broke, you're not kicking hard enough".
The aim is to kick your opponent's shins as many times as
possible until you make them fall to the ground. The players
are allowed, in good ol' country style, to have straw stuffed
down their trousers to try and soften the blow. If you think
this sounds a bit too painful to be fun then spare a though
for past contenders: back in the sixteenth century there are
records of steel-toe-capped boots being worn, hardening shins
with coal hammers in preparation which resulted in, not surprisingly,
many a broken leg. Luckily, health and safety regulations
took force and its now just good, clean kicking fun.
Other events in the Olympicks include a tug of war, sack
races, sledge hammer throwing, and weaving a football
through traffic cones.
The day finishes off with a giant fire and fireworks display
followed by a spectacular firelight procession down the hill
into the town where the locals top up with alcohol and dance
the night away to a band - or for those who can still stand
up, at least!
Where to stay - West Banqueting House
A grand banquet is held in Cotswold Banqueting Hall after
the festival. This seventeenth century banqueting house was
a burnt out wreck until it was fully restored by the Landmark
Trust -a charity that takes old, dilapidated buildings and
restores them to their former glory. At a reasonable cost
you can stay anywhere from a lighthouse to a castle. The West
Banqueting House dates to around 1613 when the banqueting
house would have been used as a place to retire to after dinner
in the main house. (The house was burnt to the ground in the
Civil War.) It has a large, barrel vaulted chamber on the
ground floor which is now the kitchen and dining room, and
on the first floor the double bedroom and bathroom contain
fragments of the rich and elegant plasterwork and paneling
that would once have adorned all the buildings on this site.
The second bedroom and sitting room are contained in a separate
building a short distance away. It is available for holidays
for up to four people.
How to get to Chipping Camden
Chipping Camden is in Gloucestershire in the South West of
England, a two-hour drive from London. If you are travelling
by coach you need to get off at Moreton-in-the-Marsh and get
a local bus to Chipping Camden. Once you get to the town,
buses run from the central square up to Dover Hill where the
games are held.
|
