Fives Wall at the Fleur de Lis

Image: © Nigel Mykura Taken: 24 Jan 2009

This large wall over 30 ft high is all that remains of a once popular game. There are several others in the area where Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset adjoin. Fives was a ball game played with the hand using a small leather-covered ball. It is possible that the game was introduced by monks from the Basque country who came to build monasteries. The Fleur de Lis Inn at Stoke sub Hamdon was originally the lodgings of monks building the Priory nearby and this wall at the rear of the inn in an excellent state of preservation. The game was also played up against church towers, often causing problems. In one set of churchwardens' accounts of 1705 is the cost of 4 shillings for repairing a window at the fives place. Another of the local fives walls at Hinton St George is known as the Pelota Wall which may indicate its origins, for pelota is a game like fives, played in the Basque country. Some of the inns had temporary grandstands built near walls where crowds gathered to watch the local matches. One old record indicates that 'over £60 was taken at the gate for the fives match.' The Fives Court here at the Fleur de Lis used to have a six foot square flat stone let into the ground twenty yards from the wall. The player bounced the ball on the square, then struck it with his bare hand to hit the wall, the object being to cause the ball to rebound on the stone square. He had several goes and the referee would say where the wall was to be struck each time. The skill was in the ability of the player to put the necessary spin on the ball to make it rebound on the stone square from any part of the wall and so score a point. If the ball missed there was no score.

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