Adderbury

The village of Adderbury lies in northern Oxfordshire.

The existence of the traditional Adderbury morris side was first documented by Janet Blunt. In 1916 she began interviewing William "Binx" Walton, who was then 80 years old. Walton had been foreman of the Adderbury side for a 20 year interval at the middle of the 19th century. In 1919 Blunt introduced Walton to Cecil Sharp, who watched Walton's performances and published detailed descriptions in his Morris Book.

Subsequent researches have determined that there were once as many as 3 morris sides in Adderbury, and the names of more than 2 dozen of the 19th century dancers have been documented. During Whitsun week they performed their dances in Adderbury and the neighboring towns.

The best reference for the Adderbury dances (indeed, one of the best books for teaching any morris) was published in 1989 by Tim Radford and the Morris Federation. ADDERBURY TRADITION: Cotswold Morris Dancing (ISBN 0 948383 05 4).

Adderbury figures as done by Seabright

Seabright does a right-footed Adderbury that covers a lot of ground. Early in 1995 some of the first-year dancers requested the list of standard figures to be used when we dance. So far we have these.

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Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org>