Olympick Vision (Radio 3 Sunday Feature)

The story of how Britain's Olympic journey started 400 years ago - in the Cotswolds. It was once thought that the modern Olympics was the brainchild of Baron Pierre de Coubertin alone and put into action in Greece in 1896. The man himself encouraged the myth. But in this programme former England cricketer Ed Smith goes back to the real rebirth of the Olympic, or rather the 'Olympick', idea and the games held by Captain Robert Dover on the hill above the Cotswold town of Chipping Campden - exactly four hundred years ago, in 1612. With the former Olympic sprinter and historian Peter Radford as his guide, Ed picks his way through the Cotswold games story and questions why Robert Dover's name is only the merest footnote in the Modern Olympic story. And, he asks, why was it that Britain should nurture both the ideas and events that took place every year on Kingcombe Plain, later to be renamed Dover's Hill? Producer: Tom Alban.