The Castle Inn in Newport was licensed to host cockfighting – a brutal pastime now long vanished – on 25th September 1705.
The Castle Inn, a central feature of Newport High Street, is today a traditional pub. In 1705, it was the centre of a very different kind of entertainment. The licence, issued to Joseph Haskall by Thomas Archer, allowed him to maintain a cockpit for public recreation from September 1705 to September 1706. Given under the office at Whitehall in the fourth year of Queen Ann, 1705, it set strict rules for order and conduct.
The licence reads:
I, Thomas Archer, do hereby depute, as my deputy and servant, Joseph Haskall, to keep and retain and have in and about his house for the recreation such as may play thereat a cockpit from the 25th September 1705 to the 25th September 1706, provided always that he keep and observe the rules following:
Maintain and keep good orders in and about your house.
Do not suffer apprentices and servants to play there.
Do not suffer any one of what quality ever to play at any games upon Sundays.
Do not suffer any idle or suspected persons to lurk in or about your house to cheat or curse any one.
Article continues below this advertisement Use the said games only for the moderate recreation of civilly-disposed persons, at reasonable times and lawful hours.
If you do anything contrary to these rules this deputation is void and of no effect.
Cockfighting had been part of English life for centuries, from Roman times through Tudor and Stuart reigns. By the 17th and 18th centuries, inns like the Castle hosted purpose-built cockpits, drawing crowds eager to watch birds fight and wager on the outcome. Newport, as a busy county town, was a natural hub.
The document itself hung in the Castle at the turn of the 19th to 20th century and was claimed to be the final royal permission ever granted for cockfighting. By then, public attitudes had shifted. Campaigners against animal cruelty prompted the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835, outlawing the practice and ending a centuries-old tradition.
No trace of the cockpit remains at the Castle Inn today, but the 1705 licence endures as a vivid reminder of a very different world, where gambling, sport, and social life intersected in ways modern visitors might find shocking.
Great story, just goes to show they had balls
in the old days.
Lol