Predating the modern Olympics by three centuries, the Cotswold Olimpick Games is an eccentric annual sporting festival that’s been taking place on a hill near Chipping Campden since 1612 (on and off).
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What is the Cotswold Olimpicks?
Held around Whitsun (late May), the Cotswold Olimpicks originally featured a range of challenges, from running races and throwing competitions through to feats of strength and combat sports, including the infamous shin-kicking contest, which sees pairs of participants grabbing each others’ shoulders and brutally booting one another in lower legs, while attempting to grapple their opponent to the ground.
When do the Cotswold Olimpicks take place?
The Games traditionally take place on the first Friday after the spring bank holiday, in late May.
How did the Cotswold Olimpicks begin?
Inspired by the Ancient Olympic Games – a religious and athletic festival held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece, between 776 BC and circa 400 AD – lawyer Robert Dover initiated the event, which was first held in 1612 (or 1601, according to some accounts). Dover came up with the idea of the Games as a way to promote healthy activities and channel the energies of local people. The event was timed to coincide with Whitsun festivities, and the location of the hill, about half a mile outside of Chipping Campden, meant it was close enough to the town to attract competitors and spectators, but sufficiently distant to avoid damage if things got overly rowdy.
Backed by Baptist Hicks, a wealthy merchant, and supported by the king, the Games attracted people of all classes, apparently including Prince Rupert, who is reported to have attended the event in 1636.
What events take place at the Cotswold Olimpicks?
Originally, the Olimpicks included everything from horse racing and hare coursing through to sword and cudgel fighting, and card playing and other smaller games took place in side tents. Although scaled down, and with some concessions having been made to health and safety (and insurance premiums), several of the traditional and eccentric events have survived in some form and are still contested today.
The Games also feature challenges such as Champion of the Hill, where individuals compete in four events: Static Jump (jumping as far as possible from a standstill), Spurning the Barre (an old English version of tossing the caber), Hammer Throw and Putting the Shot. The confusingly closely named Championship of the Hill sees teams try and get a quantity of water from the bottom to the top of Dover Hill in a variety of ways (using buckets, wheelbarrows and whatever else they can find). There’s also a tug-of-war and hill running events. The one that gets a lot of attention, thanks to its perceived (and historic) savagery is the Shin Kicking Contest.
What is the Shin Kicking Contest?
The Shin Kicking Contest sees pairs of participants grabbing each others’ shoulders and booting one another in the shins, while attempting to grapple their opponent to the ground. This unique form of wrestling once featured men wearing boots with metal toecaps and significant injuries were common, but such footwear is now banned, and entrants are even allowed to stuff straw down the legs of their trousers to form a rudimentary shinpad. Still, the competition is fiercely contested, and it is not for the faint of heart or soft of bone.
How are the Cotswold Olimpicks celebrated today?
Many of the original games that appeared in the Cotswold Olimpicks still take place today. Anyone can take part (if they’re brave enough) and the event is family friendly and alcohol-free (unlike years ago). There is an opening ceremony, followed by the contests. After a closing firework display, the drummers and pipers of the Coventry Corps lead a torchlit procession into the centre of Chipping Campden, where there’s a big party.
Did Shakespeare really attend the Cotswold Olimpicks?
It’s often claimed Shakespeare references the Cotswold Olimpicks in his work, particularly in the wrestling scene in As You Like It and some dialogue in The Merry Wives of Windsor. The Bard died four years after the Cotswold Olimpicks started, so it is possible that he attended the event (which was famous far and wide), but equally both plays were probably written prior to 1600, and elements were sometimes added to his work posthumously. What is indisputable, however, is that an anthology called Annalia Dubrensia was published in 1636, containing odes describing the Games penned by the era’s best-known poets, including Ben Johnson and Michael Drayton. (Copies of this text still survive.)
When were the Cotswold Olimpicks celebrated?
The increasingly powerful Puritans frowned on the festival, and the Cotswold Olimpicks ceased being held for 18 years as the Civil War simmered then erupted in the mid 17th century. Despite the death of Dover, the Games resumed straight after the restoration and evolved into a large and boisterous affair until, in 1862, the landowner enclosed the hill, killing the event off. The Games were revived during the Festival of Britain in 1951, however, and have been held almost every year since.
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