A team of historians are bringing Shakespearean entertainment to life in an open day featuring a virtual-reality reconstruction and fencing demonstrations.

The Box Office Bears project takes a look at the everyday travel of bears throughout England during the era, including through Rochester, and the practice of animal sport as a form of entertainment.

The team will be hosting an open house at Eastgate House, Rochester, on February 14, followed by a talk.

From 1pm to 5pm visitors can take part in the family friendly open day, with a chance to explore the house free of charge.

There will be stations all around the building offering different entertainment, including a talking cartoon bear, fencing demonstrations, a virtual reality reconstruction of a Shakespearean parlour room, and performers inhabiting the characters of Mother Bombie, the titular character in John Lyly's 1590s play set in Rochester.

The hour-long talk will follow the open day, and will discuss the cultural world of the Towns in Elizabethan times.

Tickets for the talk can be booked via Eventbrite by clicking here, or the Box Office Bears website, by clicking here.

Using written records and animal remains, the team have explored the movement of bears through early modern England - including in the Medway Towns.

One of the 1,200 records the team have used for research includes a full itinerary of a trip through Kent, beginning in Dartford and arriving nine stops later in Rye, East Sussex, including a stop at Rochester.

Four stops from Canterbury, Rochester was a popular stop for bear handlers on their journeys, and records show residents complaining about them not cleaning up animal mess.

One man wrote to the authorities to complain how “bearwards with their bears refuse the broad way and come with their bears [over] the foot way which lies by [my] house door […]” and have sometimes even “broken in and frighted [my] wife and family”.

Another record saw an individual fined for "annoying the Queen's highway with the soilage of two bears".

The bears would be travelling on their way to perform in the sport of baiting, where dogs would be set upon them. This was one of the most popular forms of entertainment during the era, even more so than attending the theatre.

Eastgate House, built in the 16th century, was home to Sir Peter Buck, who was the Clerk of the Cheque at the dockyard, a local alderman, and sometime mayor. Entertainers at the time would often visit to seek permission from the mayor to perform in the city.