The A to Z of Sexual history: B - berkeley Horse, A Flogging Machine, 1828

All you need to flog is a stick and a tush. It’s surprising, then, that some people have the energy to invent a machine designed entirely to make flogging easier, but in the sixteenth century someone did, and got rich beating the shit out of the King of England’s arse (possibly literally).

The ingenious invention was thanks to Theresa Berkeley, the so-called governess of London’s most famous flagellant brothel, a whorehouse dedicated to the art of flogging and chastisement. It’s standard internet fodder now, but she specialised in beating men with sticks and telling them what dicks they were nearly 200 years ago.

This is how her machine, the Berkeley Horse works: You are tied face-down onto the rack with your face and your genitals poking out the carefully placed holes. Next, you're levered into a 45-degree angle, then as someone bloodies your arse with a birch, another strumpet can sit underneath and suck you off – creating a sumptuous melody of pleasure and pain.

Flogging’s pretty traditional and in ancient Sparta there was even an annual Day of the Floggings. The first erotic English book on flogging emerged in 1700s and led to a mass of brothels dedicated to anal action; the English were so keen it was dubbed "the English vice" by the French in 1718. This flagellation-mania reached a zenith in the 1800s and pornographic books with titles like The Convent School: Early Experiences of a Young Flagellant and plots involving schoolboys and birches were pretty trendy.

One writer of the time, B J Hurwood, wrote, "Perhaps it was the cold climate which originally aroused in Englishmen a desire for whipping. Nowhere [else] in the world do we find such a deep affection for the rod." It might have been the fact that the upper classes were spanked at school that engendered generations of powerful, influential masochists. Flagellation was considered an aristocratic fetish – only posh people like to be beaten for fun.

Mrs Berkeley’s brothel was on what is now Hallam Street, in Marylebone. Understanding that a worker is only as good as her tools, she created the machine to meet popular demand. It attracted numerous members of the aristocracy including King George IV (who was into having his anus tortured) and amassed her a fortune of £10,000 (£500,000 these days). One flagellant fan wrote to Mrs Berkeley after hearing of her famous apparatus, offering her "a pound sterling for the first blood drawn, two pounds if the blood runs down to my heels, three pounds if my heels are bathed in blood, four pounds if the blood reaches the floor, and five pounds if you succeed in making me lose consciousness." Which is the kind of testimonial that destroys any notion of quaint Britishness surrounding this – it’s more psychotic than that.

After Mrs Berkeley’s death in 1836, the Berkley Horse was handed to the Royal Society of Arts and exhibited for the Promotion of the Arts, Manufacture and Commerce as perversity’s contribution to the industrial revolution. However, the Horse disappeared soon afterwards and not even a replica has been seen since. Frankly, it doesn’t look that hard to make – all you need is an old bed and a spare afternoon.