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A Lost Social Institution: The Camping Close

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

David Dymond
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Extract

The game of camping or camp-ball, best described as a blend of football and handball, was played for centuries in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex. It survived well into the nineteenth century, and indeed was consciously revived after the Napoleonic Wars. Furthermore, as a traditional form of recreation, it began to attract antiquarian interest at an early date, and was mentioned by several county and parochial historians of the eighteenth century Our evidence for the game is still regrettably scattered and circumstantial, but its quantity has increased appreciably in recent years. This, therefore, seems a good time to offer some new ideas on the subject, in the hope of getting closer to the real nature and social significance of a once popular regional sport.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1990 , pp. 165 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

Notes

1 For example, Francis, Blomefield, History of Norfolk, I (London, 1805), p. 177Google Scholar; Sir, John Cullum, History and Antiquities of Hawsted (London, 1784), p. 113.Google Scholar

2 Kurath, H. & Kuhn, S.M. (eds.), Middle English Dictionary, (University of Michigan, 1959), p. 28Google Scholar; Joseph, Wright, English Dialect Dictionary, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1898, reprint 1981), p. 500.Google Scholar One must acknowledge the possibility of confusing this term with other place-names, for example those based on the Latin campus and OE camp meaning simply a field or enclosure (see Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements (Cambridge, 1970), Vol.1, pp. 79–80).Google Scholar

3 In choosing to use the expression camping close throughout this article, I am not overlooking the possibility that the variants may have slightly different meanings and topographical implications. For example, Knettishall, a Breckland parish with a low population, used a large strip of meadowland along the valley of the Little Ouse which is called the Camping Ground. In such a setting, the word Close would certainly not have been appropriate.

4 Tithe Apportionments as follows – Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): T55/1,2 (Icklingham All Saints); Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): T82/1,2 (Icklingham St James); Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich): FDA57/A1/1a&b (Capel St Mary); Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): T146/1,2 (Clare); Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): T222/1,2 (Semer); Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): T226/1,2 (Whatfield). One must admit that the Camp Close at Clare could have been named after an Iron Age fort on the site, otherwise known as Erbury

5 Thomas, Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (Oxford, 1984), pp. 54, 58Google Scholar [sub December].

6 In 1710 Daniel Hillman added his gloss to Tusser's words by saying that ‘so many People running up and down a piece of Ground without doubt evens and saddens it, so that the Root of the Grass lies firm’, and they also deter moles.

7 Norfolk Record Office: PD52/273–78; Francis, Blomefield, History of Norfolk, VI (London, 1807), 216.Google Scholar This triangular piece of land is depicted, under its alternative name of Shooting Land, on William Faden's map of Norfolk, 1797 (ed. C. Barringer, Norfolk Record Society, XLII, 1975). By the 1830s the parishioners of Swaffham claimed the privilege of playing ‘at cricket[!] and other games there’ [BBP, 1835, XXI, (i)]. For details on John Botwright, see Emden, A.B., Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge, to 1500 (Cambridge, 1963), p. 81.Google Scholar

8 Survey of Ixworth Manor, 1625 (Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): HB502/2753/16/39 f. 30r & v).

9 Ex inf Timothy Easton (publication forthcoming). This association with inns raises another fascinating problem of dating. Was the camping close, from the moment of its original designation, connected with the inn (in which case, it was more likely to have been created after the Reformation), or was it tied to the inn later in its history (perhaps involving a move of site)?

10 On checking through the Tithe Apportionments of Cosford Hundred, which lies at the southern end of High Suffolk, I found that only two parishes out of seventeen yielded a Camping Close (12%). Perhaps this field-name was more frequently replaced here, or alternative names had usually been preferred such as Shooting Field (Layham, near the church) or Fair Close (Lindsey). Or maybe recreational sites were genuinely rarer in the south of the region. Only time and further research will produce the answers.

11 David, Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion (Oxford, 1987), pp. 75–77Google Scholar Stool-ball is related to cricket, but the bowler aims directly at the wicket without allowing the ball to touch the ground. Once widespread, stool-ball is now largely confined to Sussex. References to stool-ball are occasionally found in East Anglia. For example, three men were presented in 1606 for playing ‘stole ball’ upon the Sabbath at Saxmundham (Norfolk Record Office VIS 4/2/2, for which reference I thank Peter Northeast). Other examples from Norfolk are given in Susan, Amussen, An Ordered Society (Oxford, 1988), p. 175.Google Scholar

12 David, Dymond & Edward, Martin, An Historical Atlas of Suffolk (1987), Map 45, pp. 100–01.Google Scholar It is worth remembering that Icklingham, a Breckland community, had two camping closes – one for each of its parishes. Another relevant factor is that fewer tithe apportionments survive in the Breckland, and similar regions of light land, because tithes were often commuted by the earlier process of parliamentary enclosure.

13 D.E. Davy, British Library.Add.19,171,f. 368; Norman, Scarfe, The Suffolk Landscape (London, 1972), p. 201.Google Scholar See also ‘The autobiography of a Suffolk farm labourer’ published in the Suffolk Mercury from 2 Nov 1894 (Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich): q S 942.08, p. 23).

14 Episcopal Visitation, 1611 (Norfolk Record Office: VIS/4).

15 Field-names such as Butts, Game Place or Fairstead have also been noted in close association with churches and churchyards. Good examples can be found at Thaxted (E) and Barton (C) (The Butts); Layham (Shooting Field); East Hanningfield (E) (Playing Place); and Barley, Herts. (Playstow). At Gt Barton the Church Green had the alternative name of Pleisto by 1613 (see Redstone, V.B., Procs. Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, XI (1903), 281.Google Scholar At Stiffkey, the Camping Hill mentioned in a document of 1579 was also known as the Hill of Health (ex inf Prof. Hassell Smith). This intriguing place-name, which also occurs at Culford and near Cambridge, seems worthy of greater study

16 F Blomefield, Suffolk Collection, Cambridge University Library. Add. MSS 3390, f. 215: Et unum inclausum vocatum Le Playing Place abutans super viam ducentem de Asfield ad Bury continens unam acram et unam rodam’ Unfortunately no date is given for this reference.

17 At Weybread in 1617, the parish paid 2 shillings for a ‘merriment uppon the towne close’ (East Anglian, I (1864), 409).

18 Magoun, F.P, American Historical Review, 35 (1929–1930), 36–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Statutes of the Realm, Vol. 2, p. 57–12 Rich.II, c.6 (1388); p. 163: 11 Henry IV, c.4 (1409–10).

20 Archdeaconry Visitations (Norfolk Record Office: ANW 2/42&58). In the 1640s several Suffolk clergy were accused of having allowed, encouraged or played camping, even on the Sabbath. For example, Thomas Sayer, vicar of Hoxne, suffered ‘frequent shooting and camping neere his house’ See Clive, Holmes, The Suffolk Committees for Scandalous Ministers, 1644–46, Suffolk Records Society, XIII (1970), pp. 61, 70, 75 and 76.Google Scholar

21 Quarter Sessions at Woodbridge, 16 July 1700 (Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich): 105/2/13, f.137; Quarter Sessions at Bury St Edmunds, 19 July 1731 (Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich): 105/2/19, f.71).

22 For example, in 1421 Thomas Stowne of Copford assaulted Richard Stogg with ‘quodam campyngrock’ (Essex Record Office (Chelmsford): D/DHt M 144). I am indebted to Mr W.R. Powell for this reference. (For another reference to a ‘camping crook’, see Note 62).

23 Ward, Jennifer C. (ed.), The Medieval Essex Community The Lay Subsidy of 1327, Essex Historical Documents I (1983), p. 66Google Scholar; Reaney, P.H., The Place-Names of Essex (Cambridge, 1935), p. 437Google Scholar See also Reaney, P.H., A Dictionary of British Surnames (London, 1961), p. 253Google Scholar [sub Plaistow, etc.]. We have occasional evidence to show that sports or entertainments of some kind really happened in earlier centuries. For example, in 1363 a man at Polstead was amerced for entering the lord's close and playing with others ‘in the lord's hall a game called a somergamen’ (Dyer, C., ‘The Rising of 1381 in Suffolk: its origins and participants’, Procs. Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, XXXVI (1988), 281)Google Scholar.

24 Joan, Thirsk (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. IV, 1500–1640 (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 41–9Google Scholar

25 Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich): FC 90/L3/8.

26 Marjorie, McIntosh, ‘Local change and community control in England, 1465–1500’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 49 (1986), 219–40.Google Scholar

27 Dennis, Brailsford, Sport and Society (London, 1969), pp. 55–6Google Scholar (Haxey); James, E.O., Seasonal Feasts and Festivals (London, 1961), pp. 298Google Scholar (Haxey), 301–2 (Ashbourne and Derby); Magoun, F.P, ‘Shrove Tuesday Football’, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature XIII (1931), 25–32Google Scholar (Derby and Ashbourne); Wright, A.R., British Calendar Customs, England, Vol. 1 (ed. Lones, T.E., London, 1936), pp. 26–7Google Scholar (Derby and Ashbourne).

28 Richard, Carew, The Survey of Cornwall (London, 1602), pp. 73–5.Google Scholar

29 The game of camping was played in the streets of Dorking, Surrey, on Shrove Tuesday See Surrey Archaeological Collections 14 (1899), 14–15.

30 Holland, W (ed. Raven, J.J.), Cratfield Papers (London, 1895), p. 51.Google Scholar

31 The converse may also be true. See Note 8 above.

32 Statutes of the Realm, Vol. 2 (London, 1816): 12 Richard II, c.4–6 (1388).

33 David, Bevington, Medieval Drama, (Boston, 1975), pp. 754–88.Google Scholar

34 The Field Book of Walsham-le-Willows, 1577, ed. Dodd, K.M., Suffolk Records Society, Vol. XVII (1974) 92Google Scholar: Dodd, K.M., Shakespeare Quarterly, 21 (1970), 129–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 At Cottenham, the camping close was adjacent to the churchyard and featured among ‘Old Enclosures’ on the first draft of the enclosure map. At Oakington, the camping close lay opposite the church and was formerly covered by broad ridge-and-furrow Dr J. Ravensdale kindly supplied me with these observations.

36 Sir, William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, IV (London, 1846), 654.Google Scholar

37 Compotus of Stanton, 1452 (Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): HA 522).

38 For this quotation, I am indebted to Mr Robert Wright.

39 Ralph Furnice of Carbrooke was presented for setting up horns ‘upon the camperland rails’, as a way of mocking the marriage of one William Maies, 1605 (Norfolk Record Office: ANW 6/6).

40 Pakenham provides an excellent example. Its camping close is largely intact as an open pasture in a commanding position at the end of the village street and against the churchyard. Although within a Conservation Area, it has no special designation or protection and could fall prey to development.

41 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1637–38 (London, 1869), p. 503.

42 Heywood, J. & Wright, T, Cambridge University Transactions, 1 (London, 1854), 305–11.Google Scholar Another good example has recently surfaced at Harston (C). In 1590 Thomas Tucke was presented ‘for that he was at the footeball in the tyme of eveninge prayer upon Sondaye laste’ His defence was ‘that he was then in the Campinge Close but did not playe’ (Cambridge University Library. EDR B/2/11).

43 Tithe Apportionment of Chesterton (Cambridge University Library. EDR T 7).

44 Kurath & Kuhn (eds.), Middle English Dictionary, p. 28; Promptorium Parvulorum, 1499 (written 1440; facsimile by Scolar Press, 1968).

45 Essex Record Office (Chelmsford): ‘Essex Field-Names collected and arranged by William Chapman Waller’ (based on Tithe Apportionments).

46 Essex Record Office (Chelmsford): D/DU 400/3 & 10. By 1746 this field was known as ‘Foot Ball Field’

47 Sir Thomas Elyot, The Boke named the Governour (London, 1531), f.99; Phillip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses (London, 1583), [unpaginated].

48 Magoun, F.P, ‘Football in Medieval England’, American Historical Review, 35 (1929–1930), 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Calendar of Assize Records – Essex Indictments, Eliz. I (London, 1978), p. 227Google Scholar (for other similar cases, see Ibid., pp. 54 & 234; Calendar of Assize Records – Essex Indictments, James I (London, 1982), pp. 156–7Google Scholar

50 Winthrop Papers, I, 1498–1628 (Massachusetts Hist. Soc., 1929), p. 84.Google Scholar

51 Statutes of the Realm, Vol. IV, Pt 1 (London, 1819), p. 285: 2 & 3 Phil. & Mary, c.9 (1555).

52 Edward, Powell, Kingship, Law and Society. Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V (Oxford, 1989), p. 150.Google Scholar

53 Diarmaid, Macculloch, ‘Kett's rebellion in context’ in P, Slack (ed.), Rebellion, Popular Protest and the Social Order (Cambridge, 1984), p. 43.Google Scholar

54 Beer, B.L., ‘The Commoyson in Norfolk, 1549’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 6 (1976), 73–99Google Scholar ; Nicholas Sotherton, ‘The Commoyson in Norfolk’, British Library. Harl. 1576.

55 Public Record Office (Chancery Lane, London): STAC 3/4/7; Diarmaid, Macculloch, ‘Kett's rebellion in context’ in P, Slack (ed.) Rebellion, Popular Protest and the Social Order (Cambridge, 1984), p. 41Google Scholar, Diarmaid, Macculloch, Suffolk and the Tudors (Oxford, 1986), pp. 302 & 331.Google Scholar

56 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1637–38 (London, 1869), pp. 503–4. Littleport itself had a classic camping close adjacent to the church and celebrated ‘Camping Close Day’ on Shrove Tuesday at the end of the nineteenth century (Enid, Porter, The Folklore of East Anglia (London, 1974), pp. 58–9Google Scholar; Tithe Apportionment, Cambridge University Library. EDR t 7). The town and camping close were securely on the upland of the Isle of Ely, though only yards from the surrounding fen. Lakenheath, a Suffolk village less than 10 miles from Littleport, also contributed its quota of rioters; it too had a camping close which lay between the village street and fen-edge (Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): T 96A/1,2).

57 Edward, Moor, Suffolk Words and Phrases (London, 1823), p. 65.Google Scholar

58 D.E. Davy, British Library.Add. 19,171,f. 368.

59 ‘Autobiography of a Suffolk labourer’, Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich): q S 942.08, p. 23.

60 Robert, Forby, The Vocabulary of East Anglia (London, 1830), p. 51.Google Scholar

61 Rev W T Spurdens, ‘East Anglian words’ (written 1840) in W W Skeat, Reprinted Glossaries, Series B (London, 1879); Ketton-Cremer, R. W., ‘Camping – a forgotten Norfolk game’, Norfolk Archaeology, XXIV(1931), 89Google Scholar; Eric, Pursehouse, Waveney Valley Studies [Diss, Norfolk, 1966], p. 13.Google Scholar Before the match began, the men of Norfolk are said to have asked their opponents if they had brought their coffins with them!

62 Furnivall, F. J. (ed.), The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, englished by John Lydgate, AD 1426, Roxburghe Club (London, 1905), p306.Google Scholar’ (For another reference to ‘camping crook’ see Note 20).

63 For example, Suffolk Mercury, 20 May 1723 (match at Rickinghall); Ipswich Journal, 29 Aug. 1741 (match at Eye); Ipswich Journal, 10 Oct. 1741 (match at Ditchingham, Norf.); Ipswich Journal, 8 Sept. 1750 (match at Boxford); Ipswich Journal, 30 Sept. 1752 (match at Eye); Ipswich Journal, 19 Oct. 1754 (match at Eye); Ipswich Journal, 10 Jan. 1784 (match at Parham). I am greatly indebted to Dr Pat Murrell for these references.

64 D.E. Davy, British Library.Add.19,171,f. 368.

65 A game at Tunstead in 1822 involved ‘byes’ as well as goals. See Norfolk Chronicle, 13 July 1822.

66 Moor, Suffolk Words, p. 65.

67 Sources in the early nineteenth century speak of goals 150 to 200 yards apart, and 10 to 15 yards wide. See Moor, Suffolk Words, p. 64.

68 Ex inf Timothy Easton (publication forthcoming).

69 Forby, Vocabulary, pp. 51–2.

70 In which direction was ‘home’? Was it a goal defended by the opposing team, or was one's own goal the desired haven?

71 Moor, Suffolk Words, p. 64: ‘He who can first catch or seize it [the ball] speeds therefore home pursued by his opponents (thro' whom he has to make his way) aided by the jostlings and various assistances of his own sidesmen’

72 It is not clear whether these rules applied to the whole wild melee, or merely to the player immediately engaging the man with the ball.

73 Richard, Carew, The Survey of Cornwall (London, 1602), p. 74.Google Scholar

74 The following example from the area around Lyng in central Norfolk was recorded from living memory in about 1900: ‘The lads of two adjoining villages met on the dividing line of the two villages. The objective of the game was to get the ball by any means – force, speed or stratagem – into the porch of the Church of the opponents' village. The game seems to have gone on the whole day’ (Norfolk Archaeology, XXIV (1930–32), 317). This reference is a reminder that the sporting connections of church porches may have been overlooked in parochial documents. Where camping closes lay adjacent to churches, porches could have been used for the storage of equipment (like the staves at Chesterton; see pp. 179 and 181), or even as changing rooms.

75 Moor, Suffolk Words, p. 65; Forby, Vocabulary, p. 51, Spurdens, W. T., East Anglian Words, p. 60Google Scholar; Nall, J.G., Glossary of the Dialect and Provincialisms of East Anglia (London, 1866), pp. 525–6.Google Scholar

76 John, Arlott (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Sports and Games (London, 1975), esp. pp. 321–6.Google Scholar It is an extraordinary coincidence that the man who shaped American Football from 1880 onwards was Walter CAMP of Yale!

77 In Sheffield a Campo or Camper Lane leading to the grammer school is first recorded in the seventeenth century, and became Camping Lane in the nineteenth. It is possible therefore that the game also existed in south Yorkshire, as well as in Surrey (see Note 29). However, this place-name may be more plausibly derived from the dialect word cample or campo meaning ‘to scold, bully or argue’, see Wright, J., English Dialect Dictionary, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1898), 500.Google Scholar

78 Smith, A.H., English Place-Name Elements, Part II (Cambridge, 1956), p. 67Google Scholar; see also pleg-stall and pleg-stede.

79 Gilbert, White, The Natural History of Selborne (London, 1789), pp. 345–6Google Scholar; Dunn Macray, W., Calendar of Charters and Documents relating to Selborne and its Priory (London & Winchester, 1891), p. 64.Google Scholar

80 Victoria County History of Oxfordshire, 10, 132; Edward, Trollope, Sleaford, and the Wapentakes of Flaxwell and Aswardhurn, in the County of Lincoln, (London, 1872), p. 229Google Scholar

81 Mills, A.D, The Place-Names of Dorset, Pt 3, EPNS, LIX/LX (1989), p. 306.Google Scholar

82 Survey of Stour Provost, 1575 (King's College, Cambridge: D128); custumal of Up Cerne, Dorset, early seventeenth century (Dorset Record Office: D 13/M1). I am deeply indebted to Dr J. Bettey for these references.

83 Proceedings before ecclesiastical court, 1634 (Somerset Record Office: D/D/Cd/81); also David, Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion (Oxford, 1987), pp. 86–8.Google Scholar

84 Examples abound. In 1511, when the parish of Bassingbourn (C) mounted a drama in honour of St George, a local man was paid 12d. ‘for Easement of his Crofft to play in’ (Cambridgeshire Record Office: P11/5/2). At Walsham-le-Willows in 1577 an open-air theatre was called the Game Place (see Note 34). Bennet Kinge of Bungay, an actor who died in 1595, left ‘game players aparell’, playe boockes' and ‘dysgysings for players’ (Norfolk Record Office: 30 Hinde). In a statute of 1477–8, the words ‘games’ and ‘plays’ are used interchangeably to describe pastimes such as dicing, quoits, tennis and football (17 Edward IV, c.3). Such evidence underlines how important it is for modern historians to choose words which avoid ambiguity and confusion. As in the case of ‘camping’ and ‘camp’ (see note 2), these other place-name elements have to be used with caution. At Pakenham, for example, a wooded ‘Game Close’ recorded in 1756 in a remote heathland part of the parish, was not a place where villagers disported themselves, but was clearly for the rearing of pheasants! (Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds): E3/22.1.1).