Old English Game
The Carlisle and the Oxford

date: 2026-06-01

The Old English Game (OEG) is the bird of the British cockpit. It is, in a meaningful sense, the original gamecock of the modern Western world — the landrace from which the American, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and most Latin American gamefowl ultimately derive.

By the eighteenth century the breed had already settled into the two great strains that bear their names to this day: the Carlisle and the Oxford.

Carlisle vs Oxford

The two strains represent two philosophies of the British cockpit.

The Carlisle (sometimes called the heavie) is a tall, broad-shouldered, thick-meated bird — the Border fighter, bred in the Cumbria-Northumbria marches for power and endurance. It was, in the words of the old fanciers, the cock for a fifty-pound main and a winter’s day.

The Oxford (the lightie or corker) is smaller, faster, and more agile — the Southern bird, bred for the quick decision and the artful stroke. Cockfighting in southern England was often conducted in shorter mains with smaller purses; the Oxford matched the sport.

“There is, in every Carlisle, the makings of a conqueror; in every Oxford, the speed of a dancer.” — The Field, vol. 36 (1870)

The distinction has softened in modern exhibition strains but is still visible to the practised eye.

The Redshank

Long before the Carlisle and the Oxford there was the Redshank — the original British gamecock of the cockpit, the bird of the Stuarts, the cock of the Royal Cockpit-in-Court at Whitehall. The Redshank was almost certainly a derivation of the Malay or a closely related Oriental import, brought to England in the sixteenth century and so heavily crossed with native landrace fowl that its pure form was largely absorbed by the time of the Civil War.

The bird survives as a colour variety in modern Old English Game — redshank refers to the slate-blue leg of the male, distinctive of the strain.

Distinctive Physical Traits

The OEG is a compact, balanced, alert bird — neither the towering stance of the Shamo nor the heavy mass of the Malay. The carriage is proud but not extreme; the body is short and broad, the breast full and forward. The comb is single (occasionally dubbed for exhibition), serrated with five to seven points; the wattles are full and round.

Plumage runs to a vast variety of recognised colours: black-breasted red, duckwing (gold and silver), pyle, pile, spangled, birchen, white, black, and many more. The leg colour is a breed marker — white, yellow, slate, dark, willow.

Cultural Role

The OEG was, with the Shamo, the bird most frequently depicted in the European cockfighting prints of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — the broadsheet artist operating in the English and Dutch markets producing thousands of such images, often pairing an aristocratic cock with a heraldic crest or a moral motto.

The breed’s decline came with the Humane Act of 1835, which made cockfighting illegal in England and Wales and effectively ended the British pit. From that moment the OEG transitioned to an exhibition bird, kept by fanciers who valued it for its beauty, alertness, and unbroken type.

Conservation

The OEG remains secure in Britain, where it is one of the most popular of all show breeds, with strong breeder populations. The Carlisle and Oxford strains are recognised as distinct varieties by the Poultry Club of Great Britain, with separate standards.