Boxing in Grewelthorpe.
According to a reference in Gowlands “The Antiquities of Ripon & Riponshire” there is evidence that Boxing matches were organised in Grewelthorpe during the 18th century. Possibly these were open air on the village green.
There is a story that illustrates the Dean of Ripon, Dean Waddilove’s zeal as a magistrate. Hearing that there was to be a prize fight at Grewelthorpe, the Dean went there with two special constables and destroyed the stage. The Ripon Town Clerk and a land surveyor named Humphreys had gone to Grewelthorpe to see the fight, but they were made the unwilling instruments of stopping it because The Dean swore them in as special constables for that purpose.
Robert Darley Waddilove was born in Boroughbridge in 1736.