AROUND 200 years ago a form of recreation regularly took place in the heart of Swindon that was of such a “brutal and degrading character” it can scarcely be contemplated in these more enlightened times.

Roughnecks and well-to-dos alike gathered to enjoy this fine spot of sport and enthusiastically wagered on the outcome.

It involved a bull, several dogs and an awful lot of hollering, shouting, mayhem and the breaking of bones and spilling of blood… invariably from the unfortunate creatures involved.

Presumably due to a shortage of bears in Wiltshire at the time, bull baiting took place at The Square in today’s High Street, opposite The Bell, as recently as the early 19th Century.

It was laid on for the “popular amusement of our grandfathers” – as described in the late 19th Century – and to entertain an army of hard-bitten navvies looking for local action while engaged in constructing the Wilts and Berks Canal.

Bull and bear baiting was not uncommon in Merry England of the Middle Ages. Indeed, it was “highly relished by the nobility” and “countenanced by persons of the most exalted rank, without exception, even of the fair sex”.

In Sports and Pastimes of the English People (1801), philanthropist Joseph Strutt (1765–1844) relates a 16th Century incident in which Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary and her sister, the future Elizabeth I, enjoyed a “grand exhibition of bear baiting” which left their highnesses “right well content”.

By the end of the 18th Century persons of rank and opulence, however, had long since poo-pooed bull and bear baiting, which sank into the domain of the “lowest and most despicable part of the people”. It was in rural backwaters such as Swindon, sadly, where the “sport” survived.

Around the turn of the century, when Swindon – today’s Old Town – had a population of about 1,200, its inhabitants were “thrown very much on their own resources for such amusements as they were able to enjoy”… bull baiting among them.

We are aware of this intriguing though distasteful slice of social history because of one person – the man who founded the Swindon Advertiser 161 years ago, William Morris (1826-1891.) As well as establishing the country’s first penny newspaper, Morris was also Swindon’s first historian, publishing the quaintly titled Reminiscences, Notes and Relics of Ye Old Wiltshire Towne 130 years ago (reprinted in 1970.) Morris was only nine when bull baiting was finally outlawed in Britain and so never witnessed the barbaric medieval pastime as it unfolded in Swindon’s Market Square. But he knew a man who did.

Henry Jones was 84 when he informed Morris that he had seen bull baiting at The Square “many times”.

Such events, it appeared, were something of a big deal in Swindon, where the poor old bull was paraded around town, draped in colourful ribbons, before show time.

During the early 19th Century it was the job of a certain William Mills to ride on top of the bull as it was being led by ropes, whooping up the crowd, whetting their appetites, no doubt.

The bull was chained from a loose iron ring that hung from a large oaken post. (Morris recalled seeing the post socket being dug up in The Square during Swindon’s first drainage works decades later.) A circle of dogs were then set on the bull whose rage was exacerbated, in time-honored tradition, by being “blown full of pepper”. A fight, of sorts, ensued, with the bull deploying its horns to gouge and hurl all-comers into the air.

The dogs were usually of a certain breed, having been bred to bait bulls or bears and thus acquiring the now familiar moniker of bulldogs.

One particular bull baiting event especially stayed in Jones’s mind – apparently one of the last to have taken place in Swindon.

It involved a Cricklade butcher’s lad who obtained permission from his master to take his dog to the Swindon bait.

“He went to Swindon but returned without his dog,” remarked Morris drily.

The hound in question – alas, its name is not recorded – was tossed several times by the furious bull “till at length the bull, thrusting one of its horns into its side, literally disemboweled it”.

Such was the dog’s spirit that a guinea’s bet was offered – and accepted – that it would attack the bull one more time despite its parlous state-of-health.

Thus encouraged, the hound picked itself up, charged at the snorting creature, seized it by the nose-ring and held on vigorously until flopping into a lifeless heap.

Morris wrote that “the good qualities of this particular dog, and not the horrid brutality of the whole business” caused it to be remembered and referred to for years afterwards.

Bull baiting became passé in Swindon until a revival was sparked by canal diggers in the early 19th Century. Morris put the town’s final bull bait at “1810 or 1812”.

“The shopkeepers and inhabitants of Swindon knew of no higher compliment they could pay to the navvies who had come among them to make the canal than by reintroducing for their amusement the sport of bull baiting.”

  • BLOOD and beer flowed in equal measures as Swindon folk acquired their entertainment by gawping at ferocious cudgel fights up until the mid-19th Century.

    Savage stuff it was too, with many a “gamester,” as competitors were known, suffering grievous wounds.

    Back-swording, also known as single-sticking, lured large numbers of spectators, revellers and gamblers to the Market Square and other areas of town and surrounding villages.

    A back-sword or single-stick, as used in Swindon, was a 3-4ft stick of ash with a hand hilt.

    Opponents had to strike each other’s head and cause “the blood to run one inch” before a winner was declared.

    Scores of competitors took part in such contests where lucrative cash prizes were on offer.

    A two day backsword event at The Square on September 23/24, 1808 offered 15 guineas to the overall winner while consolation prizes of a shilling were dispensed to “every man who shall have his head broken.”

    Some gamesters were so adept, wrote Morris, that they could draw blood without hurting an opponent. Others would “belabour their opponent about the arms and body in the most ferocious manner.”

    Swindon’s Last Great Backsword Bout took place at the Regent Street site now occupied by a Chinese restaurant which formerly housed The Rifleman’s Arms either in 1840 or 1841.

    The barbarity of scenes witnessed there, Morris recorded, “were impossible to forget”.

    Often organised by pub landlords, it was customary for umpires to gulp from a huge pot of beer before the proceedings commenced as “such sport could not go on without beer”.

  •  AS well as bull-baiting and backswording, The Market Square was used for another popular Swindon pastime… chucking rotten fruit and veg at those convicted of minor crimes.

    Swindon being a relatively small settlement before the Railway Works arrived in the mid-19th Century, the chances are that everyone knew the unfortunate felon they were hurling gunge at.

    “The stocks and pillory must have afforded rare fun at the time when they were in common use,” Morris wrote, possibly with a chuckle.

    “Their exhibitions must have come in as most enjoyable interludes between the periods devoted to bull-baiting and single-stick.”

  •  HAVING launched the Swindon Advertiser and Monthly Record in 1854, William Morris used the newspaper to rally against brutish sport of backswording.

    On August 4, 1856 he reported on a bout at Wroughton. You can almost feel the disgust seeping from the inky pages of the hand-pressed Swindon Advertiser and North Wilts Chronicle, as it had been renamed.

    “Englishmen knock about each other’s heads with ashen staves for gain. The fortunate fellow who can crack his opponent’s skull and make the blood run one inch receives two shillings and sixpence – and some beer.

    “Englishmen look on, clap their hands, cry bravo, exhibit various other demonstrations of joy and pleasure and call the degrading, debasing exhibition ‘Fine Old English Sport’.”