Block:English Baseball in Berkshire, Oxfordshire on March 8 1871

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A writer recalled observing "bass-ball" being played a half-century earlier in the Kine Croft Hills near Wallingford, Berkshire, as he described in a newspaper column under the heading “Rambles in Wallingford.” He wrote: "Games also were annually held here on Mayday, and many a comely and buxom girl have I witnessed on such occasions vigorously throwing the bass-ball to a fellow maiden near her, and all were full of frolic. This latter game I have discovered is nearly, if not completely, gone out of fashion now about here which is to be deplored, as I am one who would willingly see a revival of such like harmless sports."

Sources

Oxfordshire Weekly News (Chipping Norton), March 8, 1871, p. 3

Block Notes

This column originally appeared in the Abington and Reading Herald (date unknown). The author, William Allnatt, later included the text of this column in a book entitled Rambles in the Neighbourhood of Wallingford, published in Wallingford in 1873 (S. Bradford). The town of Wallingford was transferred from Berkshire to Oxfordshire in 1974.

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