John Aubrey’s Natural History, Part 12: Stobball

Colerne Down

On the high limestone plateau above the village of Colerne in north Wiltshire, something remarkable used to happen. People gathered in numbers large enough to make Colerne famous to play a game that has since vanished, stobball.

To my knowledge, everything we know about stobball comes from John Aubrey.

Aubrey described stobball twice. In his notes on north Wiltshire places he wrote of Colerne Down as ‘the place so famous and frequented for stoball playing,’ adding that ‘the turfe is very fine, and the rock is within an inch and a half of the surface, which gives the ball so quick a rebound.’  In the Natural History he returned to the subject with additional detail, noting that the game was ‘peculiar to North Wilts, North Gloucestershire, and a little part of Somerset near Bath’. This was an intensely localised game, confined to the limestone uplands around the Cotswold edge.

The equipment Aubrey described is quite precise. The ball was about four inches in diameter, stuffed with quills, I assume shafts of stripped bird feathers, sewn into leather and as hard as a stone. The staff used to strike it was about three and a half to four feet long, commonly made of withy (willow), described in the Natural History as a ‘great turned staff’,  suggesting a long, thick, cylindrical object, shaped on a lathe, probably broader at one end — more club than flat bat. Players would ‘smite the ball,’ presumably against the ground, because the whole point of using Colerne Down was the excellent rebound. The freestone lying within an inch and a half of the surface meant the ball came back fast and true, seemingly making the down the premier stobball ground in the region.

Beyond that, the rules are lost.

Maybe the game is related to stoolball, played from at least the 15th century, which involved a stool as a wicket, or stowball, a game that used clubs and pins and involved driving a ball around a course, but Aubrey mentions no equipment other than a ball and a staff.

Colerne Down is still there. The freestone is still an inch and a half down. The turf is still fine. Sadly, stobball is not and therefore this game remains a mystery.