Community Dance in the Thames Valley

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London	.	London	Calendar	.
TQ2883	Regents Park Rd	Cecil Sharp House: Home of the English Folk Dance & Song Society EFDSS Link	.	.
TQ4764	Chelsfield	Past Time : Historical Dancers. Re-create the social dances of the 15th and 16th century wearing peasant costumes inspired by the paintings of Brueghel the Elder. They meet twice a month on a Saturday afternoon at Chelsfield Village Hall near Orpington Kent. Pictured dancing at The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, Singleton, W Sussex at their annual Early Music Afternoon (The first Sunday in July) Pastime Website	1SunJul

Windsor	.	Windsor Forest	Calendar	.
SU7372	Earley	Earley Folk Dance Group: Maypole & Country Dancers. In recent years we have revived the traditional maypole dancing at the annual Wokingham May Fayre. May Day Bank Holiday Monday. Go to Web Page	1MonMay
SU7270	Reading	Reading Folk Dance Group . See Web Site	.	.
SU7270	Reading	Aldbrickham Clog. See Web Site With St. Andrew's Scottish Dancers at the 2005 Waterfest.	.	.
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Chilterns	.	Chiltern Hills	Calendar	.
SP7408	Haddenham	Regular Ceilidhs in the Village Hall. A Saturday Night most months. See Web Site	.	.
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Oxford	.	Oxfordshire	Calendar	.
SU3894	Charney Bassett	Vale Islanders : Traditional English Dance Group. The Vale Islanders are named after the Island Villages of Charney Bassett, Goosey, Stanford in the Vale and Hanny in the Vale of the White Horse. The group performs traditional English dances of the 17th and 18th century dressed in the costume of the period seeking to preserve the historical dances and tunes of old England. Go to Website	.	.
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KennetW	.	Kennet West	Calendar	.
ST9273	Chippenham	Chippenham Folk Festival: Late May Bank Holiday Weekend Web Site	LstWeMay	.
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Mendips	.	Mendip & Quantock Hills	Calendar	.
ST1238	Halsway	Halsway Manor National centre for Traditional Music, dance and song. web site	.	.
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LandsEnd

Lands End & The Lizard

Calendar

SW6627

Helston

Furry Dance: The 8th of May is at Helston given up to pleasure and is known as Flora-day, Flurry-day, Fury-day, and Faddy. To "fade" meant in old English to dance from country to town. A legend says this day was set apart to commemorate a fight between the devil and St. Michael, in which the first was defeated. The name Helston has been fancifully derived from a large block of granite which until 1783 was to be seen in the yard of the Angel hotel, the principle Inn of the place. This was the stone that sealed Hell's mouth and the devil was carrying it when met by St. Michael.
The revelry begins at day break when men and maidservants with their friends go into the country to breakfast; these are the "Hal-an-tow". They return about eight, laden with green boughs. preceded by a drum and singing an old song, the first verses of which ran thus:

Robin Hood and Little John
They both are gone to fair, O!
And we will to the merry greenwood
To see what they do there, O!
And or to chase - O!
To chase the buck and doe.

With Hall-an-tow! Rumbelow!
For we are up as soon as any O!
And for to fetch the summer home,
The summer and the May O!
For summer is a-come O!
And winter is a-gone O!

The whole of this song may be found with the music in the Rev. Baring Gould's "Songs of the West" and the first verse set to another tune in "Specimens of Cornish Dialect" by Uncle Jan Trenoodle.
The Hal-an-tow are privileged to levy contributions on strangers coming into the town.
Early in the morning merry peals are rung on the church bells and at nine a prescriptive holiday is demanded by the boys at the grammar school. At noon the principal inhabitants and visitors dance through the streets. The dancers start from the market-house, and go through the streets; in at the front doors of the of the houses that have been left open for them, ringing every bell and knocking at every knocker, and out at the back, but if more convenient they dance around the garden, or even around a room, and return throught the door by which they entered. Sometimes the procession files in at one shop door, dances through that department and out through another, and in one place descends into the cellar. all the main streets are thus traversed, and a circuit is made of the bowling green, which at one end is the extreme limit of the town. Two beadles, their wands wreathed with flowers, and a band with gaily decorated drum, head the procession. The dance ends with "hands across" at the assembly room of the Angel hotel, where there is always a ball in the evening. (Cornish Feasts and Feasten Customs 1886)

8May

SW4630

Penzance

Thread the Needle through the streets Midsummer-eve. In Penzance, and nearly all the parishes of West Penwith, immediately after nightfall on the eves of St. John and St Peter, the 23rd and 28th of June, lines of tar-barrels, occasionally broken by bonfires, were simultaneously lighted in all the the streets, whilst at the same time, bonfires were kindled on all the cairns and hills around Mount's Bay, throwing the outlines in bold relief against the sky. The villagers, linked in circles hand-in-hand, danced round them to preserve themselves against witchcraft, and, when they burnt low, one person here and there detached himself from the rest and leaped through the flames to insure himself from some special evil. The old people counted these fires and drew a presage from them. ................. The proceedings finished by boys and girls from the quay, whose torches had by this time expired, dancing in a long line hand in hand through the streets, in and out and sometimes over the now low burning tar barrels, crying out, "An eye, an eye". At this shout the top couple held up their arms and beginning with the last, the others ran under them, thus reversing their position.
The Golowan Festival and Mazey Day takes place around the 24th June (St. John's Day or Midsummer's Day) and is a modern revival based on these old traditions. Web Site

23Jun
28Jun

24Jun

National	.	Other Sites in England & Wales.	Calendar	.
SO5528	King's Caple	Caple Tump: Alfred Watkins mentions this mound as a dancing place, describing it as " a pretty circus ring with its low parapet of earthen banking for sitting out with fine elms all round the rim" Caple Feast took place on the Wednesday of Whit week.	WhitWed	See: The Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins figs 1 & 2
SY1287	Sidmouth	Sidmouth Folk Festival 1st week in August	1WkAug	.
SW9860	Roche	Snails Creep:"In Mid-Cornwall, in the second week of June, at St. Roche and in one or two adjacent parishes, a curious dance is performed at their annual feasts. It enjoys the rather undignified name of "Snail's creep" but would be more properly called "The Serpent's Coil". The following is scarcely a perfect description of it: - The young people being all assembled in a large meadow, the village band strikes up a simple but lively air, and marches forward, followed by the whole assemblage, leading hand-in-hand (or more closely linked in case of engaged couples) , the whole keeping in time to the tune with a lively step. The band or head of the serpent keeps marching in an ever narrowing circle, whilst its train of dancing followers becomes coiled around it in circle after circle. It is now that the most interesting part of the dance commences, for the band, taking a sharp turn about, begins to retrace the circle, still followed as before, and a number of young men with long, leafy branches in their hands as standards, direct this counter-movement with almost military precision."	2WkJun	.
ST8522	Shaftsbury	The Besant: "The inhabitants of Shaftesbury have an annual custom of great singularity called the Bessant, or a May Day Dance for the Waters of Mottcomb. The last new married couple of the town come in the morning to the Mayor's House and are presented, the one with a fine Holland Shirt, the other with a shift of the same material, elegantly adorned with ribbons of all the colours of the rainbow. With these begin the procession, and immediately after them a party bearing a large dish, in which is placed a calf's head, with a purse of money in the mouth. Round the buds or young horns is wreathed a chaplet composed of all the flowers of the season. Over this the Bessant is held at the end of a pole by a man dressed in singular uniform. Now comes the Mayor and his Aldermanic body; at the sound of the music, of which there is great plenty, the whole are put in motion, youth, age and even decreptitude, begin to dance, and in this way quit the town, descend the hill and never cease leaping and prancing till they arriveat the Well of Mottcomb where the owners of the water wait to receive their merry customers." They "....return dancing in the most ridiculous way to the place from whence they came, finishing the day with May Games and the greatest Festivity" (From the Sporting Magazine 1803)	1May	.
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