The Olympick Games held in the Cotswolds in 1612

The Games and festivities began on Dovers Hill near Chipping Campden in 1612, under the auspices of Sir Baptiste Hicks. It was claimed that games, contests and races would keep locals fit to fight for the King. There were much merriment dancing and drinking which was frowned upon by the Puritans. Sadly the games were stopped after the Puritan Victory of the Civil War, revived in the late 1700s, and banned again after a rowdy episode in the 1850s. The games were restarted in 1966. Fans of shin-kicking, handstands welly wanging and relay races using wheelbarrows over slippery surfaces gather each year at the end of May for a weekend of festivities and Jamboree.!

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