In the last issue of SDNQ information was sought concerning the sport of fives in Somerset. Some information can be found in Church court records due to the appeal of churchyards and church walls as locations for those taking part in the sport. For example, at Limington, in 1613, it is recorded how fives was played against the church1 and Stoke St Mary churchyard was the scene of the sport in 1634.2 A case brought before Quarter Sessions in 1633 gives a great deal of detail about the logistics of the game. Two men’s misdemeanours were described:
Whereas there hath been of late an idle game used by tossinge of a ball against the Chapple walle of Williton in a narrow place there betwixt two glasse windowes whereby the same windowes were much often torren and defaced to the greate dislike of the inhabitants.
This sporting activity was much to the annoyance of the parishioners, and the local landowner, John Wyndham, was involved in dealing with the two men.3
In 1620 an earlier case brought before Quarter Sessions, which involved several inhabitants of East Brent, gives some indication of the type of people involved with the sport. The main character in this case was Richard Dodd, who was accused of frequenting the Red Lion in that village, not attending church and being ‘a common player att fives vppon the sabbaoth day in the churcheyarde’. His fellow players included Thomas Vincente, John Baker, John Kingesburye, William Dinghurste and ‘manie others’. Dodd was a violent drunkard, who with others dressed up a dog as a priest and put a tobacco pipe in its mouth in defiance of the church.4 In 1687 a game at West Bagborough resulted in violence, not due to the result but because Hugh Treble’s ball was lost by Thomas St Alban. Treble and John Commons of Combe Florey allegedly assaulted St Alban at West Bagborough fair as St Alban was unable to pay Treble half a penny for the loss.5
It was not always those of little standing in their communities who were involved in the sport. Robert Down, an overseer of the poor and bailiff to Sir Abraham Elton, played the sport. However, it cost him his life, as the diarist John Cannon recorded, in 1735, how Down’s cause of death was due to the ‘immoderate heats and colds suffered during a game of fives’. Cannon also witnessed a game in July 1726 at a revel at West Pennard. That particular match was between Messrs Thomas and Joseph Barber and ‘one Haynes’ all of West Pennard, against Mr Richard Slade, Cannon’s nephew Thomas Cannon and John Brice who was the master of Cannon’s son John. The game involved a wager of one shilling per man in which the team from West Pennard lost. Cannon recorded that the game was ‘21 up for one shilling each man’, presumably meaning that it was the first team to get to 21 points. Games such as this would have provided local ‘champions’, men who excelled at the sport and were often unbeaten, such as Robert Maynard of Street, who was at one time a pupil of Cannon and a close associate of his nephew, Thomas Cannon.6
It was not unusual for the law to be used to prevent fives being played against church towers7 and the attraction of the game caused the church officials at Ashwick to act to ‘prevent the Young People from spending so much idle time in that sort of exercise’ in 1763.8 Matters were also taken in hand at Martock in the 1750s, the details of which were published in SDNQ in the 1920s. The author also pointed how some church officials were keen to encourage the sport, such as those at Montacute and how evidence existed at church sites at Penselwood, Wincanton, North Brewham, and West Pennard.9 Elsewhere in the county walls are recorded at Nether Stowey c.1750,10 Weston All Saints Bath in 1753,11 Frome in 1759,12 Bishops Lydeard in the 1780s,13 Sidcot School c.1860,14 and Milborne Port c.1950.15 There probably are many more references to be unearthed to show the extent of the sport and, from this brief documentary research, fives can be seen to have been a widespread activity across the ancient county of Somerset.
1. Somerset Heritage Centre (S.H.C.), D\D/cd/45.
2. Ibid, D\D/ca/299.
3. Ibid, Q/SR/69/67, quoted in Rev. E.H.B. Harbin, ed., Quarter Sessions records for the county of Somerset vol. II Charles I, 1625-1639, SRS 24 (1908), xxvi
4. J.D. Stokes, ed., Records of early English drama: Somerset, vol. 1 (1996), 106-8.
5. S.H.C., Q/SR/170/37.
6. Ibid, DD/SAS C/1193/4.
7. Ibid, DD\DP/7/10.
8. Ibid, D\P\ashw/4/1/1.
9. G.W. Saunders, ‘Fives playing against church towers’ in SDNQ, 17, 75-7.
10. S.H.C., DD\AH/66/27.
11. Ibid, D\P\w.as/4/1/1.
12. Ibid, DD\X\FRC/3.
13. SDNQ 31 part 317 (Mar. 1983), 266.
14. S.H.C., DD\SC/G1393/184.
15. Ibid, DD\X\CND/2/2/53.
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