Ambleside Traditional Lakeland Sports
Early Days
The origins of organised sports in
Ambleside have variously been traced back to the granting of the market
charter and the annual fair. As far back as the 17th and 18th centuries
sporting events were held in Low Wood Bay where events included regattas
with rowing races as well as cock-fighting and bare fist boxing (both
of which would be unacceptable today). There are many early reports
relating to wrestling contests, but whether they were linked to larger
organised events along with other sports is not clear. The most
significant of these was in 1809 when Professor John Wilson (aka
Christopher North of Elleray) offered the then huge sum of five guineas
and a silver belt to the winner of the Ambleside contest.
Victorian Times
The Golden Jubilee year of Queen
Victoria’s reign, was the initiative for an organised Sports in
Ambleside in 1886. It was so well received that one enthusiastic report
stated: “It is a long time since any of this class of sports were held
at Ambleside, but having broken the ice, as it were, it is the
intention, so I hear, of those gentlemen who took the initiative in the
above, to try to make them annual.”
So the era of the annual organised sports had begun