Excerpt from the plaque:
The Cockpit was built by Allan MacNab between 1833 and 1837. He hired architect Robert Wetherell to design a country house (Dundurn Castle) and outbuildings on his fifty acre property. Wetherell designed the Cockpit to match the house and landscape design.
There are no records of cock fighting having taken place in this building. Its eight-sided shape, however, copies a common design for British cock fighting arenas. Inside the building, an octagonal shape is cut into the floor. This section was raised to give a view of the fighting pit in the basement. The spectators stood behind railings on the upper level, watching the birds and their handlers in the arena below.
Food and drink went along with betting at this popular 19th century sporting event. Items found during a 1992 archaeological dig in the basement include wine and mineral water bottles, chicken, fish and pigeon bones, and burnt plum and bean seeds. A large old lamp, suggested by the fragments of a frosted lamp shade at least two feet in diameter, was probably hung from the timber framing of the overhead cupola for light.
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