Category Archives: Team Information

June 26th 2021 – Not a day of dance but it’ll do

Westminster Morris have been holding our Day of Dance celebration in May for over 60 years now, and then bloody Covid came along and buggered it all up. We spent 2020 and a good part of 2021 on zoom meetings, trying to dance to music which was even more behind the beat than usual. It was not fun. Finally, we’re allowed to venture out and this is what we’ll be up to.

All times quoted are BMT (British Morris Time = BST plus or minus an unspecified amount of time depending on unspecified things such as, pubs)

Here’s the list of where we’ll be from our lovely Squire, who is being even more vague than usual.

11:00 The Red Lion Crown Passage, SW1Y 6PP
- Crown Passage is a narrow alley off Pall Mall at the Western end, opposite Marlborough Road. The nearest tube is Green Park.
12:00 Waterloo Place – the top of the steps from the Duke of York Column overlooking St. James Park
- SW1Y 5AG might help you
12:45 A pub, whose name or street Roger can’t remember – either that or somewhere else for lunch.
- So, if you don’t see us in that pub, look somewhere else
13:45 St Martin’s in the field.
- There’s a nice terrace near to the posh entrance.
14:30 The Ship and Shovell
- 1-3 Craven passage Wc2N 5PH
15:30 Adelaide Street
- WC2N 4HZ – on the pedestrianised bit, near the Subway food substitute place.
16:00 Finishing at The Harp
- Anyone still able to stand will be here
- WC2N 4HS
- Either that or The Wellington (Next to the Lyceum)
  - WC2R 0HS

Come on down – we’d love to see you…. if you can find us!

In memoriam: Dr Denis Smith

Long time musician to Westminster Morris, Dr Denis Smith died in November 2017. His funeral in December was well attended but, being in Scotland, there were many more who were unable to make the trip.

Lynda has arranged a memorial service to be held in the church at Thaxted on 9th June 2018 at 2:30 and all are welcome. Please see the notice attached here and let Lynda know if you are going to attend. It will help with the catering arrangements.

Westminster Morris on YouTube

If you’d like to see us dance, why not have a look at some of the videos from our Youtube Channel.

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What’s Morris Dancing?

Morris Dancing is a traditional English dance, with different varieties across the country. Westminster Morris perform dances from the Cotswolds region, which crosses Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, and a few other areas. Once performed by the men in the villages, the dances were specific to a particular town. As such, the dance traditions are named for the village they come from, for example Longborough, Adderbury, Brackley, Bampton, Headington Quarry, Sherborne, and soforth. Each tradition has distinctive movements and figures, although the overall structure and shape of dances are very similar.

Cotswold morris is not the only style of dancing referred to as morris dancing – the term is broadly applied also to the North West Clog style dances, the longsword and “rapper” sword dances from the North East, and the rambunctious dances from the Welsh Borders.

Origin

The exact origin of morris dancing remains shrouded in mystery – the earliest records found date from the rule of Henry VI in the 15th century, however it is believed that the dance predates these written accounts. Some believe it to be a harvest dance, others claim it is a fertility rite. Some say morris dancing is simply a custom or folk dance.

Revival & popularisation

Very much a localised tradition, morris dancing was seldom heard of or seen outside of the village where it was performed. During the late 1800s with the coming of industrialisation the dances were thought to be disappearing, so in keeping with the mood of cultural preservation at the time, “collectors” went out into the villages to note down the dances and songs so that they might endure. Most enthusiastic of these was Cecil Sharp, who had his first encounter with morris dancing during the Christmas of 1899 in the village of Headington Quarry, near Oxford.

In 1907 Sharp published a book of the dances he had collected, and in 1911 a society was formed to celebrate and protect this part of cultural heritage – in present day this is known as the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

Some morris dancing sides that exist today have traceable lineage back to the Traditional village teams of the 1800s.

Folk revival

In the 1950s and 1960s the UK saw a great takeoff of interest in its folk customs, and many new teams were formed – bolstering the numbers after the loss of many dancers during the two wars.

Present day

At the turn of the millenium there were over 800 morris dancing clubs in the UK, and as people travel so too does the custom: there are also sides in Europe, Australia, the USA, New Zealand, and more besides.

In the UK there are 3 supervising bodies representing morris dancing – Westminster Morris are members of The Morris Ring, which is the federation of mens’ morris dancing clubs (no longer exclusively male!). The Morris Federation and the Open Morris represent womens’ teams and mixed teams, and the three organisations work together to promote and preserve the dance form.

Further information

This page is by no means exhaustive: there are many more in-depth resources on the web. Some useful starting points are:

The Unicorn

If you’ve ever seen Westminster Morris dancing you’ll no doubt have spotted our Unicorn which accompanies the team wherever we go. The Westminster Unicorn, which along with the portcullis on our yellow and black costume makes part of the City of Westminster coat of arms, is the last surviving unicorn in captivity. He survives purely by eating money which he gladly munches from any crowd member who is kind enough to keep him alive.

The Unicorn was discovered in Epping Forest, East London, in about 1953 by one of the Westminster dancers of the time, Bill Atkin. By the Thaxted Ring Meeting in June 1954 the Unicorn was a staple member of the team, performing characteristic head-high kicks, following unsuspecting people on bicycles, and – his favourite trick – cuddling members of the audience. If you see the team dancing, please do feed the Unicorn; we don’t want the species dying out completely.

Team History

wmm1953d_jpg Westminster Morris first began practising in September 1952 during a boom in the foundation of new morris teams following the two world wars. The team first danced out in 1953, with our earliest notable public appearance being on Coronation Day. The team were very quickly accepted into the Morris Ring of England – the premier association for male morris dancing teams – and we “danced in” to the Ring on 6th of June 1953 at our first Ring Meeting in the beautiful town of Thaxted in Essex. The team has danced at every annual Thaxted Ring Meeting since then.

Westminster quickly began to tour the heartlands of the Cotswold morris dancing tradition and, being based in the capital, we have been frequent visitors at top folk events. Westminster have performed 13 times at the Albert Hall. One of the most memorable occasions was a performance in 1972 with the Royal Ballet School to a Malcolm Arnold composition.

Albert Hall in the mid 1950s

Westminster’s most famous (and frequently repeated) appearance is in the film The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966) during which Frankie Howard uses a Westminster performance as cover to flee the police. Since then the team has appeared on ITV a number of times, in TV series and in print, e.g. for The Guardian feature, and given numerous radio interviews.

The team have made a number of overseas trips.

in 2012 we travelled to the Marlboro Morris Ale in Vermont, USA, where we had a fantastic reception, and were intrigued to see how styles had evolved. We’ve had three splendid trips to the Sancerre folk dance team in France sampling glorious local cheese and wine. Further back, in the 1970s the team was part of a weeklong British trade delegation to Japan. In the 1950s and 60s the team toured France, Denmark and Holland, leading the then Squire to claim that they had “danced for all the Crowned Heads of Europe”.

Some of the key characters that have populated our club’s history include: John French, who began the team and with Keith Lester largely inspired the costumes; John Strange who set much of Westminster’s early dancing style; Colin Fleming who, as squire and foreman for many years (and Squire of the Morris Ring), improved both the accuracy of the dancing and the team’s costume; Leslie “Ginger” Saunders, who was an avid researcher of morris dancing and devised many of the dances in the style of the village of Longborough we perform today e.g. “Big John”, “Old Harry” (named after Harry Taylor, a Longborough dancer), and Longborough “Leap Frog” to the tune of Golden Vanity; Denis Smith, the team’s long-time musician who excelled at playing sensitive accordion music for the team.

The team in Ilmington in 2012

Throughout this time, Westminster have continued to try to uphold the best standards of performance striving for elegant and accurate dancing, accompanied by a Unicorn which keeps the crowd amused, and excellent music. Alongside that, we have a great social side to the club enjoying each other’s company as we dance, play and sing our way around, usually accompanied by a pint of good ale.

Where to see us dancing out and about this season

Here’s where you can find us dancing next:

Programme 2023

This is our anticipated programme, please check our webpage or other social media for full details of any event.

Events

Saturday 22nd April Guests of Dacre Morris for Beating the Bounds/St George’s Day,

Saturday 6th May Coronation Bank Holiday,

Saturday 20th May Westminster Morris Dancers Day of Dance

Wednesday Evening Tours

3rd May Green Park practice plus pub,TBC

10th May Fitzrovia

24th May Clerkenwell

7th June Primrose Hill

14th June City of London

21st June Euston

28th June Belgravia

5th July Paddington/Tyburnia tour

12th July Pimlico

19th July Sloane Square

We normally practice through the winter months, and our dance season usually starts off on our Day of Dance in May. We can be found on various tours of different parts of London on some summer nights, and we also go on weekend tours around bits of the country that we like.

Join in – “just the right amount of daft”

Morris dancing is a great way to learn a new skill, get a bit of exercise, meet some interesting people, as well as learning about England’s culture and history. It also gets you out & about around London, and to far-flung villages & towns across the country that you wouldn’t normally think of visiting.

Women are welcome. We are pleased to say that there have been female dancers in the team since 2018 and we would love to welcome more.

Westminster Morris are always looking for new dancers (and musicians!) to join the team – if you’ve danced in the past and fancy getting back into it, or have just seen dancing somewhere and would like to give it a try (it’s not necessarily as difficult as it looks) then why not use the form below to get in touch with us, and we can get you along to practice to get started!

We practice at our hall (in Westminster) from September through to May, on Wednesday nights (except for over Christmas/New Year). No dancing experience required.

Westminster DoD 2023, photo by Lewis Elliott

Westminster Morris

Proudly carrying on the English tradition of Morris Dancing in the heart of London – Westminster Morris are a morris team, with a history going back to 1952 (although morris dancing itself is much, much older than that).

We perform dances from a number of the Cotswold village traditions, including Longborough, Fieldtown, Headington Quarry, Sherborne, Bampton, Ilmington, Adderbury, and Badby. Each dance has its distinctive features, as well as sharing similarities & structural elements with other dances.

The group is a diverse mix of ages, genders, backgrounds and – latterly – nationalities: we’ve got English mechanics, Scots bus conductors, American IT guys, Australian whisky experts, engravers, salesmen, and all sorts besides. It’s an eclectic group who all share the common interest of performing for audiences around the country and sharing the fellowship of the morris.