Cotswold Games

Cotswold Olimpick Games

Image from 1636 depicting the Cotswold Games. Robert Dover, founder of the games, is on horseback, carrying a wand.
Abbreviation	Cotswold Olimpicks
Headquarters	Chipping Campden, England
Chairman	Graham Greenall
Website	Robert Dover's Games Society

The Cotswold Olimpick Games is an annual public celebration of games and sports now held on the Friday after Spring Bank Holiday near Chipping Campden, in the Cotswolds of England. The Games probably began in 1622, and have continued on and off to the present day. They were started by a local lawyer, Robert Dover, with the approval of King James. Dover's motivation in organising the Games may have been his belief that physical exercise was necessary for the defence of the realm, but he may also have been attempting to bring rich and poor together; the Games were attended by all classes of society, including royalty on one occasion.

Events included horse-racing, coursing with hounds, running, jumping, dancing, sledgehammer throwing, fighting with swords and cudgels, quarterstaff, and wrestling. Booths and tents were erected in which games such as chess and cards were played for small stakes, and abundant food was supplied for everyone who attended. A temporary wooden structure called Dover Castle was erected in a natural amphitheatre on what is now known as Dover's Hill, complete with small cannons that were fired to begin the events.

The Games took place on the Thursday and Friday of the week of Whitsun, normally between mid-May and mid-June. Many 17th-century Puritans disapproved of such festivities, believing them to be of pagan origin, and they particularly disapproved of any celebration on a Sunday or a church holiday such as Whitsun. By the time of King James's death in 1625, many Puritan landowners had forbidden their workers to attend such festivities; the increasing tensions between the supporters of the king and the Puritans resulted in the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, bringing the Games to an end.

Revived after the Restoration of 1660, the Games gradually degenerated into a drunk and disorderly country festival according to their critics. The Games ended again in 1852, when the common land on which they had been staged was partitioned between local landowners and farmers and subsequently enclosed. Since 1966 the Games have been held each year on the Friday after Spring Bank Holiday. Events have included the tug of war, gymkhana, shin-kicking, dwile flonking, motorcycle scrambling, judo, piano smashing, and morris dancing. The British Olympic Association has recognised the Cotswold Olimpick Games as "the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings".