Areport in the Lichfield Mercury in May 1822 describes what is believed to be the last incident of bull baiting in the town. It tells how a bull was brought to “the Greenhill Wake”, tied to a stake and attacked by a dog.
The terrified animal broke loose, escaped to nearby Rotten Row before being recaptured and finally – after killing two other dogs that were let loose upon it – “put out of its misery”.
Bull and bear-baiting and other blood sports had been rampantly popular in Elizabethan times, but by the late 17th and early 18th centuries there were signs that people were tiring of these primitive pastimes.
The famous diarist Samual Pepys, for example, wrote in 1666 that he had attended
