Adderbury
Location: North of Oxford and some 4 miles South of Banbury on the A423

Brief History of Tradition

Morris was danced in Adderbury unbroken until 1849. The side was eventually disbanded in 1880. Details were recorded by Janet Blunt, Cecil Sharp, and others, from discussions mainly with William Walton. As some aspects of what was recorded are unclear, this has lead to the so called 'interpretation debate' which caused two "Revival" teams to be formed.

Most of the dances had words which were sung between dances as well as during. The music was always by pipe and tabor.

The tradition was revived in 1974 from the Sharp and Blunt manuscripts, and first danced publicly in 1975. 

Adderbury Dances Performed by Our Side

Handkerchief Dances
Stick Dances

Black Joke
Constant Billy
Postman's Knock
Sweet Jenny Jones

Shepherd's Hey



Bampton 
Location: West of Oxford; A40 to Witney and then take A4095

Brief History of Tradition


'Now Mind this let it be said
Our lads all from one village born and bred
Trained and tried they must be
Picked from the best as you see
With legs so straight as a poplar tree
They clap all together and bend the knee'

William 'Jinky' Wells (1868-1953)



The Morris has been danced in Bampton (in-the-Bush) with no break ever having been recorded except during World Wars; it is the only village in England where this can be said with any certainty. The Morris was always danced through the streets and gardens of the village on Whit-Monday (nowadays Spring Bank Holiday). The dancers were accompanied by a Ragman (carrying coats, etc.), a Treasurer (collecting Money) and a Sword Bearer carrying a cake that was distributed to the audience; this represented the spirit of the Morris; a posy of flowers was placed on the tip of the sword.



Most of the information gathered by Cecil Sharp between 1908 and 1914 came from Jinky Wells, one time Fool and musician. Bampton is the most fluid of all traditions with many styles (at least 3 heys in common use). A major divergence occurred about 1924, which later resulted in two teams under Francis Shergold and Arnold Woodley. In 1965, a further split of the Woodley Side led to a third side known as 'The Rebels' (under Matt Green).


There are currently more than 33 dances with only one stick dance.



Fieldtown (Leafield)
Location: (Leafield) NW of Witney

Brief History of Tradition

The Wychwood Forest, which was once the hunting ground of Plantagenet Kings, is now less than half the size it used to be in the 14thC. The forest supported many occupations and social customs such as the Whit Hunt, Forest Fair and Ales that involved the Morris. The Wychwood Whit Hunt began at sunrise on Whit-Monday and continued until noon of each day until 4 deer were caught. After the hunt there was an Ale and the Morris was danced around the villages. A Forest Fair was also held in the evenings.

Deforestation between 1856-58 brought an end to these events and the Morris similarly declined after that period. The appearance of the railway was coincident with major changes in social conditions.

Early references to Morris in the area start at Whitney (1646), Woodstock (1705, 1727) and Churchill (1721) but none of the other Wychwood villages were mentioned before 1750.

By the 19thC the Wychwood Forest area had become the hub of the Cotswold Morris, with as many as 17 villages and even hamlets having a Morris team within a 10 mile radius of Leafield (locally known as Fieldtown) itself. No mention of a Fieldtown team was made before 1847 when dancing took place in the village to celebrate Lord Churchill's wedding.

The Wychwood Morrises represent the most developed form of the Morris in the mid. 19thC and Fieldtown, together with Sherbourne, were regarded as the 'pick of the Morris villages'.

Morris dancing in the forest villages/hamlets like Field Assarts, Asthall Leigh, Minster Lovell, Ascott and Leafield (Fieldtown) was dominated by certain families. The evolution of the dances probably represents a strong 'family' influence, unlike a larger village tradition, e.g, Bampton or Abingdon.

Our present knowledge of Fieldtown comes through Henry Franklin, a member of the side then in his 20's, who spoke to Sharp when he was 81. Sharp collected 15 dances and jigs from Henry Franklin, 12 dances from George Steptoe (some of them different from Franklin's and 6 dances from Alec Franklin. From these records it is clear that dancers, families and musicians extended links throughout a number of the above sides and the emergent styles owed more to the teacher or musician than location.



Dances Performed by Our Side

Handkerchief Dances
Stick Dances

Shepherd's Hey 
Balance the Straw
Country Gardens


BLEDINGTON
Location: 6 miles SW of Stow-on-the-Wold along A436; turnoff at B4450

Brief History of Tradition

Charles Benfield ensured a link which touched almost 4 generations of dancers and his enduring enthusiasm eventually enabled the dances to be recorded by Cecil Sharp and later demonstrated and refined by the Travelling Morrice.
Bledington is an ordinary Gloucestershire Cotswold village, close to the Oxfordshire border. Lying on the Oxfordshire Way, its houses group around a village green still retaining its Victorian maypole. Its Norman Church has a bell (1639) proclaiming 'Charles is King', reflecting the views of the local gentry at the time of the Civil War.
The Bledington area is rich in Morris history, one of the earliest recorded events being a paid performance by Morris dancers at a private house in Sherborne, 8 miles away, at Whitsun in 1711. Another recorded event took place in Churchill in 1721 just 3 miles to the north-east of Bledington when a Morris team (probably local) were paid six shillings for dancing at a Whitsun Ale. There is also evidence that sides were active in Rissington, Icomb and Milton all within 4 miles of Bledington, in the late 1700's.
No recorded incidents of Morris dancing in Bledington itself exist before the mid-19thC, when a side from Bledington were remembered as having danced at Bledington and nearby Fifield. The dances performed by sides from Idbury and Fifield were described to Sharp as being essentially the same as those at Bledington and there was sufficient similarity to the Longborough dances (taught by Henry Taylor) for men from these villages to dance as one set in 1887. As far as revealed by the records the style we know as Bledington probably first entered the records with John Lainchbury, a farm labourer from Rissington. He was the senior member of the set dancing in Idbury between 1850 and 1870, but the existence of an earlier side has been implied by a local historian.
Charles Benfield began playing the pipe and tabour for the Morris in the 1850's and 'inherited' the instruments from the renowned Sherborne and Northleach musician Jim 'the laddie' Simpson, who died from an overdose of alcohol in 1856. He eventually went on to become a key character in the local Morris playing for Milton-under-Wychwood, Idbury, Fyfield and Longborough. By the early 1880s, Benfield eventually led what became known as the junior side comprising dancers born in the 1860's. These included men like George Hathaway, Lewis Hall, William Roberts and the Kerry (Carey) brothers, who were able to pass on their knowledge to the Travelling Morrice when they visited Bledington in the 1930's. By the late 1880s Benfield found it difficult to maintain a complete side and dancing continued sporadically until the late 1890's
Some of the Bledington dancers were very colourful characters. George Hathaway believed that 'you couldn't dance unless you were three part...'. They toured with other sides like Longborough and Lower Swell, and there is an interesting description of Fools 'competing' having a breath holding competition with their heads in a rain barrel.
Some 25 Bledington dances have been collected, all but 2 with handkerchiefs.

Acknowledgements to Keith Chandler, The Morris Dancer, 3(11) p327 (Jan 2004) and Sem Seaborne, The Morris Dancer, 2(11) p55 (Jan 1995) for information used in the historical notes. Please read their accounts for a more informed discussion.

Dances Performed by Our Side

Handkerchief Dances

 

Stick Dances
Young Collins


















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