Chelmsford Morris Home Our
programme The Men YOU ARE HERE The Women The Music Morris
Mysteries Join us!
Contact us
Contact:
bagman@chelmsfordmorris.co.uk
01245 263753
 Celebrating forty years of dancing 1972 - 2012.... Our CD has arrived - A Right Old Song & Dance. Not morris music (not much anyway), but forty years of Chelmsford Morris members singing and playing a great range of folky music.
Now available from the Bagman (see top left for contact details) at £10 (£8 before May 19th) plus £1.50 postage. 72 minutes of lovely music. Well, someone's got to do it.... Chelmsford Morris is a bunch of people of all ages, who like to continue the English tradition of morris dancing. We take pride in putting on a good performance, and we enjoy ourselves as well.
The men's dances come from the Cotswolds and the areas near the Welsh border, and the women dance clog morris from the north-west of England. We dance around mid-Essex at pubs, festivals and shows, and at weddings and parties. If you would like to book us, do get in touch, but please remember that we need a sizeable area of paved ground - grass and gravel are very bad for knees and ankles! If you fancy having a go, click on our 'Join Us' link. What's been happening? At the end of October, we danced at The Duck, Newney Green. Our last summer outing was to Walton-on-the-Naze. Let the sea breeze wave those hankies! The Sompting Village Morris weekend in Sussex was brilliant.
That very
scary crocodile is our squire. Highwood Village Hall, a super-green new building, was opened by Graham Gooch in July. Here he is, lurking behind us. We were out in force at the Upton on Severn festival and put on a good show. The weather was fair and we had a great time. A brief history of morris dancing The origins of the Morris are unknown, but some think that it originates in pre-Christian rituals, while historical researchers think that it has a more recent origin in the ‘Morisco’ dances of the medieval courts of Europe. At one time morris dancing was widespread over rural England, but urban and industrial development led to a decline, leaving pockets of quite distinct dances in certain regions.
Morris dancing could have died out if it had not been for a chance encounter in 1899 between a folklorist, Cecil Sharp, and one of the last sides still dancing, the men from Headington Quarry near Oxford. Sharp set out to record the dances and the music, and noted the recollections of the surviving dancers and musicians. The publication of work by Sharp and other researchers led to a renewed interest in folk dance and song and has resulted in the Morris becoming a regular spectacle throughout England.
The clog dances of Lancashire and Cheshire, and the wilder dances of the Welsh border have been researched in more recent times.

When Philip Stubbs wrote his account of the Lord of Misrule in the late sixteenth century, it was an intrinsic part of the celebration of Christmas in the countryside. The Lord of Misrule had twelve days of sovereignty. The tradition was strongly maintained in England until finally suppressed by Victorian 'Political Correctness'.
“This king [the Lord of Misrule] annoynted , chooseth forth twentie, fourty, threescore, or an hundred lustie guttes, like to himself, to waite upon his lordly majesty, and to guarde his noble person. Then every one of these men he investeth with his liveries of greene, yellow, or some other light wanton colour, and as though they were not gawdy ynough, they bedecke themselves with scarffes, ribbons, and laces, hanged all over with gold ringes, pretious stones, and other jewels.

This done, they tie aboute either legge twentie or fourtie belles, with riche handkerchiefes in their handes. Then march this heathen company towards the church, their pypers pyping, their drummers thundring, their stumpes dauncing, their belles jyngling, their handkerchiefes fluttering aboute their heades like madde men, their hobbie horses and other monsters skirmishing amongst the throng.”

So no change there!