Morris dances were often associated with Whitsun Ales – parish festivities at which ale was brewed and sold for the benefit of the parish. These traditional events were often presided over by a Lord and Lady of the feast. After the Civil War and Commonwealth the link with the church was broken but in the South Midlands Whitsun Ales survived, most often as community ventures.

Eynsham erected a maypole — the traditional sign of an Ale — in 1660, after the Restoration. Sometimes the Ale was known as a ‘Lamb Ale’ after the practice (as at Kirtlington) of chasing and catching a lamb, which unfortunate animal then formed the basis of the feast. Eynsham’s was a Lamb Ale, and the last ‘Lady of the Lamb’, was said to be Sarah Stayt, who died in 1840. This would suggest that the last Ale took place around 1800. It is very probable that Eynsham’s morris dancers were entertainers in the Ale throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

From the memories of one old dancer, Joseph Evans, whose forefathers had danced, we can reasonably infer a tradition of Morris dancing going back to the first half of the nineteenth century and lasting continuously into the twentieth.

The first documentary evidence we have is a brief report in the Oxford Chronicle for 17 May 1856 which tells us that ‘on the Wednesday some of the villagers entertained the inhabitants with morris dancing’. This was 14 May, the Wednesday of Whit Week, the traditional dancing season.

Five years later the Bampton correspondent of Jackson’s Oxford Journal reported on 26 January 1861 that ‘Last week we were amused by the appearance of a novelty in the shape of a party of morris dancers, formed of frozen-out individuals from Ensham. They were well requited not, so much, we imagine, for the gracefulness of their saltatory powers, as in approval of their efforts to obtain an “honest penny” ‘. Bampton — which has and had then its own team of morris dancers — is about nine miles from Eynsham. Although unusual, it is not unknown for dancers to dance out of season to earn money, and Eynsham seem to have made a habit of it. (Morris dancing was ‘discovered’ by Cecil Sharp on Boxing Day, 1899, when he encountered the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers similarly dancing out of season through being out of work because of the frost.)

It was on a trip to Blenheim in about 1901 that Eynsham Morris were seen by the artist William Nicholson, who painted a set of pictures of the side and its foreman Feathers Russell. Feathers made half a dozen trips to Woodstock to sit for them, for a sovereign a time.

Here is how Max Beerbohm described one Woodstock performance: The first dance was in full swing when I approached. Only six of the men were dancers. Of the others, one was the “minstrel”, the other the “dysard”. The “minstrel” was playing a flute; and the “dysard” I knew by the wand and leathern bladder which he brandished as he walked around, keeping a space for the dancers, and chasing and buffeting merrily any man or child who ventured too near … I was told that the wife or sweetheart of every dancer takes special pains to deck her man out more gayly than his fellows. But … so bewildering was the amount of brand‑new bunting attached to all these eight men that no matron or maiden could for the life of her determine which was the most splendid of them all.’ (Max Beerbohm, “A Morris for May Day”, Harpers Magazine, 1907)

 The antiquary Percy Manning noted the members of the side in 1902 as: Ed Russell (‘Feathers’), William Russell (‘Buff’), Horace Belcher, E May, Charles Masters (‘Clemmie Hedges’), Henry Hedges, G’ Masters, Fred Harwood and Ben Ayres. In the winter the dancers usually performed a mummers’ play as well as dancing. ‘We did all the houses, Eynsham Hall, Blenheim Palace … we had to walk,’ said the last survivor of the pre World War I side. They sometimes used a donkey as pack animal on these tours.

 A significant event in the side’s history came when the folk dance collector Cecil Sharp visited in 1908. Sharp rarely saw a full side of traditional dancers perform together, as most villages had long abandoned their dances by his time. He met them at the Railway Inn and wrote of the occasion as follows:

 The dancers met me, I remember, one dull, wet afternoon in mid winter, in an ill-lighted upper room of a wayside inn. They came straight from the fields in their working clothes, sodden with mud, and danced in boots heavily weighted with mud to the music of a mouth organ, indifferently played. The depression which not unnaturally lay heavily upon us all at the start was, however, as by a miracle dispelled immediately the dance began, and they gave me as fine an exhibition of Morris dancing as it has ever been my good fortune to see.

(CJ. Sharp, The Morris Book, part III, 2nd edn. 1924)

During this period there was a boys’ side as well as a men’s side, and this strength probably helped the side to survive World War I. During the War the mummers’ play continued to be performed, and some Morris also.

Regular dancing began again very quickly after the War with Lady Mason of Eynsham Hall providing the material for the first set of new smocks. In 1924 more smocks were made by Ada Gardner, daughter of Fred Harwood, who was then foreman of the side. ‘You used to hear my father shout “cross” or “round” or whatever; he used to start the dance and then when he knew that the steps was right, they went round or crossed. He was a soldier, he could shout.’

Music was supplied by a simple fiddle, and a three foot midget named Billy Betterton often acted as fool or ‘bladder man’ in the twenties. But Ada Gardner recalls ‘I know one year they couldn’t get a side together and that’s when it stopped, ’cause the youngsters wouldn’t pick it up.’ Sid Russell wrote in 1937 that ‘the smocks we had seven years ago have gone’, so the break probably came around 1930. 

Although public displays certainly stopped for a time, the dancers apparently got together occasionally for ‘private shows’; Lottie Pimm remembers them dancing in the family’s shop every year up to the outbreak of World War II. In 1935 a children’s Morris side turned out for the Silver Jubilee of George V. The team learned Morris from Sharp’s books, except for the Eynsham dance Brighton Camp which the Russell family taught them. ‘All the Russells could dance automatically, it was in the blood’.

In 1937 men began practising together under Sid Russell. They danced out for George Vl’s Coronation on 12 May 1937, the team then being Buff Russell (74 years old and still dancing), his sons Sid, Bert and Cecil; Arthur, Perce and Phil Lambourne, Jack Drewitt, and Ern Edwards (who also played for the Morris in the twenties) on mouth organ and melodeon. The Travelling Morrice from Cambridge visited the team on 26 June 1937, and the two teams danced in the Square. As usual, the vigour of Eynsham’s dancing impressed; one of the visitors wrote, ‘The dancing was an absolutely exhilarating sight and the step most vigorous. There is no feeling of decadence about the Eynsham dancing.’

As the smocks had gone, the side’s costume consisted simply of a sash, the bell pads and what have become known as ‘Anzac’ hats, over ordinary clothes.

During the revival the side was drawn more into the general ‘folk dance revival’, dancing at meetings of Morris sides at Abingdon, and once going to dance at the headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in London. But in the end dissension within the group about altering the dances, and other matters, had the result that the side stopped dancing out in public in 1939.

Although there was no more dancing in public after 1939, there were still many men in the village who knew the dances, and they met and danced occasionally after World War II, although not in costume. Sid Russell continued to train boys’ sides at the school, teaching the Brighton Camp and Figure Eight dances. The first Foreman of the current side, Keith Green, learned these dances in 1952; the 1953 side (below) danced in public for the Queen’s Coronation.

Throughout all the post-war period Sid Russell continued to encourage the village youngsters in the hope that one day an adult Eynsham side would dance again, but sometimes despairing of ever seeing it. Keith Green, who by then often went to see Sid and chat with him, finally decided to try to revive the Eynsham Morris, encouraged by the presence in the village of others with folk song and dance interests. An inaugural meeting was called for 2 October 1979 in the clubroom of the Red Lion, made available by the kindness of the long serving landlord Frank Harris and Auntie, his wife. All eight who attended were Eynsham residents, and residence or birth in Eynsham is still a requirement for membership. More men soon joined, making the revival viable. Dave Townsend, who taught the side, investigated afresh all the sources, written as well as verbal. Every effort was made to talk to as many former dancers as possible, including Sid Russell. Although he was delighted at the prospect of the revival, sadly, he died before the first public performance of the new side. All the dances were demonstrated before dancers from the twenties and thirties for their approval, and their corrections incorporated in the dances. Some of the figures now danced are named after those who described them to the side. For its costume the side returned to the traditional smocks, breeches, top hats and hobnailed boots.

The first public performance of the revived side was on the May Day Bank Holiday, 5 May 1980. Starting from outside the Red Lion, the side proceeded to dance round the village, stopping (of course!) at all the pubs. The hosts for the day were, and continued for some years to be, the Eynsham Ladies, who regularly did country dances in the village on May Day in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Fund. The revived side has never looked back, and rapidly gained a reputation as one of the most colourful and flamboyant (and noisy!) Morris sides in existence. The old vigour, so often remarked upon in the past, has not been forgotten.

The side dances frequently between May and September, most often in company with other Morris teams. Most of the dancing is local, but during the 1980s the side travelled to Dartmoor (the Dartmoor Folk Festival), Kent (as guests of Ravensbourne Morris), Chester (as guests of Manley Morris) and Derby (performing in the “Dancing England” show); and even as far afield as Denmark (the Ballerup Folk Festival). The May Bank Holiday and the Eynsham Carnival (the first Saturday in July) have become traditional dates for the side’s performances in the village.

The side took great pride in the fact that Phil Lambourne, of the 1930s side, was for ten years a valuable member of the current team, acting as collector, traffic warden, baggage attendant and public relations man par excellence. It is sad to record that Phil, the last survivor of the 1930s side, died in 1989. Until a few weeks before his death he continued to tour with the side; four of the team bore his coffin at the funeral.

Among the high spots of the 1990s were the visits to  The Globe theatre in London in 1997 and 1998, and the visit to Albania in 1998.

During 1997 Eynsham Morris raised over 7,000 for medical equipment in Kor, Albania, and in May 1998 the side went there to hand over the money and to dance for the entertainment of the people there. We received a tremendous welcome – but some alarming moments too, as when gunfire broke out on the street one day!

One of the places we visited was the Tefta Tashko Koço School of Music. They were trying to provide musical education with almost no resources. For example, there was just one piano in the School which was in constant use 16 hours a day in half-hour sessions. The music they use was laboriously copied out by hand from the few pieces of printed music they have. We were able to collect more resources for them to use.

There were also visits to the Ballerup Folk Festival in Denmark, another in Austria and a wild trip to Cobh in Ireland.

An early highspot in the new century was a visit to the folk festival at Mediaş in Romania in 2001. The side made an impression and even got an article in the local press!

Throughout the decade the team has danced with Headington Quarry Morris Dancers at Black’s Treat, the ‘alternative’ May Morning hosted at 6 a.m. by sculptor Michael Black at the Aristotle Lane bridge over the Oxford Canal, after the main event in Central Oxford got too overrun by amplified music. It has become almost as ‘traditional’ as the main event.

In May 2006 the team flew to the United States to dance at the biggest morris festival in North America, the Marlboro Morris Ale, held at Marlboro College, Vermont. Thirteen men flew to Boston and hired three people carriers to drive first to the home of our friend Rhett Krause (ex Oxford city and Kirtlington dancer) in Massachusetts, then on the next day to the ale venue. We danced in baking hot temperatures but it was an an amazing experience. Almost twenty teams gathered for the Ale. In the course of the event the side wrested the Aunt Sally trophy from the host side, upholding the honour of Oxfordshire pub sports.

The first day’s dancing tour finished in Brattleboro. The next day finished with a massed display at Newfane Common.

We then drove on to New York (let’s pass over the moment two of the vehicles drove into each other…) where we stayed with three host families in Brooklyn and Manhattan. We did the tourist thing and visited the Empire State Building and the site of 9/11, and in the evening danced with all the NY teams at Brooklyn Heights, across the river from the famous Manhattan skyline.

The next day on via the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, which owns one of the Nicholson paintings of Eynsham morris from a century ago, to Boston, where we were again hosted by several local families. A day’s dancing at Copley Square with Muddy River and the Pinewoods Men and more sightseeing — several went whale watching off Cape Cod. 

Then back to Eynsham and normality…. See the  New England album for a fuller account.