The 2021 edition of Dover's Games is cancelled.  The next games is scheduled for Fri June 3rd 2022

Welcome to the Cotswold Olimpicks

Home of the World Shinkicking Championships

Subscribe for Updates

Thanks for submitting!

The next Games is scheduled for Friday 3rd June 2022

 

These historic games were first held more than 12 centuries after the last ancient Greek Olympics and almost 3 centuries before the modern Olympic Games, which began in 1896.  2022 will celebrate our 410th anniversary and the games are still held in the arena that bears the founder's name - Dover's Hill.  

 

It now also marks the end of festival season in Chipping Campden, following hot on the heels of the International Music Festival and the Literary Festival.  If you're heading here on holiday, you might as well make a weekend of it and stay for Scuttlebrook Wake on the Saturday too.  Follow us on Social Media to stay in the loop about this year's games.

2020 Static Torchlit Procession!
Photos from previous Olimpick Games

The Castle is Built a Week Before the Games

Watch the video of The Games

More Olimpick Videos

Videos courtesy of Andrew Duke 2018

"...Events come and go; the novelty passes.  But Robert Dover's Games continue to attract crowds to Dover's Hill on a late May or early June evening.  One may ask why and offer emotional reasons - The setting has its romantic qualities.  The sound of a band, particularly a pipe band, echoing across a hillside can be haunting.  Bearing a torch aloft can evoke the past.  Combine all three elements in the procession from the hillside as darkness falls and one can feel part of the agelessness of ways in which people have always enjoyed themselves."    

 

Dr Francis Burns  -  A life-long friend to and scholar of The Games