STAND outside the Abbey Bank at Oxford’s Carfax and you’ll find a slab in the wall commemorating the Swindlestock Tavern, a pub which stood here from 1250-1709. 660 years ago it was the site of one of Oxford’s bloodiest episodes.

On the morning of 10th February 1355 - St Scholistica’s Day - a student by the name of Walter Spranghouse walked into the pub with his chums. Deciding he was displeased with the tankard of the wine he was downing for breakfast he hurled its contents into the face of the landlord, John Croydon.

Croydon scaled the tower of nearby St Martin’s Church (where Carfax Tower now stands). Croydon rang the bells, summoning 2,000 townspeople to his aid. From here on things started to get out of hand.

In the ensuing two and a half day fracas 63 Oxford students were hacked to death. Fish Street (St Aldates), Butcher’s Row (Queen Street) and Cornmarket ran with blood. Students were reported stumbling back to halls with their entrails hanging from their hands “in a most lamentable manner”.

The university fought back and the townspeople were forced to pay penance for almost 500 years.

The truth is that the St Scholistica Day Riot is probably the most exciting thing that ever happened here.

Now, I’m no fan of historic re-enactments. But I can’t help wondering what would happen were I to re-enact the St Scholistica Day Riot this afternoon? I’m willing to give it a go - on the condition that I don’t have to dress up as a medieval scholar.

The first pub I try to start a riot in is a popular watering hole in Jericho. The youthful landlord says that if I threw a glass of wine at him - unlikely at £6 a pop - his reaction would be one of shock and horror. I ask him if it was over the top to massacre 63 students? He just looks back at me in silence, as though I’ve lost the plot. Moments later he’s hard at work again - updating his Facebook status.

Out of town at the Plum Pudding in Milton landlord Jez Hill says that if a student threw a glass of wine at him he wouldn’t bat an eyelid. “I doubt I’d even ask them to leave” he says. And he’s even got a suitable punishment for the 21st Century - “I’d take their wine away and force feed them lager for the rest of their lives”.

Thankfully we’ll never see anything that compares to the St Scholistica Day riot in our streets again. But Jez agrees that it would be wonderful to involve the likes of The Sealed Knot. What a sight it would be to have gangs of medieval urchins running rampant around Central Oxford with plastic swords and fake gore.

That’s our float for the Cowley Road Carnival sorted then.