Here are some of our favourite photos from this year’s Hoop Trundle!
Hundreds of students, family members, staff, dignitaries, and friends of King’s came together on Ely Cathedral’s East Lawn for the event, which took place after Senior Prizegiving on May 26th.
Hoop Trundle is one of our most historic and fiercely-contested events. It sees our King’s and Queen’s Scholars, dressed in their distinctive scarlet red gowns, racing each other while bowling traditional wooden hoops.
Each year, around twelve students in Year 12 become King’s Scholars (boys) or Queen’s Scholars (girls) on the basis of academic excellence. They become members of the Cathedral Foundation, strengthening the unique link between King’s and the Cathedral, and they also qualify for other privileges throughout the year.
The Year 12 and Year 13 King’s and Queen’s Scholars are all great friends but their competitive side is always on display for Hoop Trundle, which commemorates the re-founding of the school by King Henry VIII in 1541. Having dissolved Ely monastery, which had educated children for centuries, he gave the school its first Royal Charter and inaugurated the first 12 King’s Scholars.
One of the privileges he allowed them was to play games, including the bowling of hoops, in the Cathedral precincts. In 1970, the school admitted girls for the first time in its 1,000 year history, and three years later the King’s Scholars were joined by Queen’s Scholars at the request of the late Queen Elizabeth II, during her visit to the school in 1973.
The winners of this year’s Hoop Trundle were Nia Baird and Ben Collier, who, quite remarkably, won 2022’s event too. As far as we are aware, Hoop Trundle has never been won by the same students for two years running!