Thankyou to Adrian for this ..

Have you or your little ones ever wanted to be a Ballet Dancer? Downland Dance are giving you the opportunity to try out a ballet class for FREE during their Open Day on Saturday 2nd November. You can sign up to events taking place during half term in Didcot or Abingdon. Sign up for classes for girls and boys aged 3 to 6 or for the Adult Beginners class (Didcot only).

For more details and to register visit www.downland-dance.co.uk/open-days or email info@downland-dance.co.uk

The Abingdon dance studio is above Seeney’s Pet Shop next to Coxeter House.

The annual Day of Dance today in Abingdon was hosted by Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers. Their invited guests were Armaleggan and Ashnah.

Armalleggan are a rowdy stick bashing Border Morris side who practise in Cumnor.

Ashnah are tribal style belly dancers, and come from Abingdon.

The day is organised by Mr Les Badcock – a life long Abingdonian.

The day had a family feel with quite a few children of members following the event. There were occasions when everybody could join in the dance and the children loved that.

The Day started at Annie’s Tea Room and ended at the Royal British Legion car park. They also danced at the Broad Face, the Market Place twice, the Black Swan and Brewery Tap.

The Mr Hemmings dancers have been encouraging ladies to join in for two or three years, and this year there was also one or two younger dancers.

The day of dance used to be on the Saturday nearest the birthday of the original Mr Tom Hemmings in early May. The move to early July happened in 2017.

Last Saturday, I was walking along Hich Street when I saw Jennifer & Colin Wiggins, now residents of Port Washington, Long Island, NY. They used to live in Abingdon, and often come back, and Colin took these pictures of the Mayor of Ock Street around 1957.

This is a close up.

In 1957 there were not so many cars going along Ock Street.

This coming Saturday, the Election of the Mayor of Ock Street takes place and in Fat Face there is a fine display to let people know ahead of time.

Approximate timings taken from the Abingdon Traditional Morris Danding website look like this …

10:00 Polling Station at Brewery Tap opens, procession into town
10:15 Black Swan
10:45 Bury Street Precinct
11:30 Abbey Gateway
12:00 – 13:00 Market Place
14:00 The Broad Face
14:30 Long Alley Almshouses
15:00 Brewery Cottages, Coopers Lane
16:00 Close of Polling Station at Brewery Tap
16:15 Election of Mayor of Ock Street, followed by chairing and dancing (Brewery Tap) … Jennifer and Colin will also be there for their first chance to see the Mayor of Ock Street in a very long time.
17:15 Procession along Ock Street
17:30 White Horse
18:15 Mayott House
19:15 – 19:45 Market Place

Last year in the Fat Face window there was Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers lego. This year they have added Mayoropoloy.

Mr Hemmings Day of Dance took place on Saturday, and attracted ten different teams, and so was one of the biggest ever – even bigger than the World Cup quarter finals. Les Badcock, the leader of the Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers, does a lot of the organising, and helped put together this big event.

It took place on the same day as the Yeah Baby charity music festival, so there was a lot happening in town. and it was hot, hot, hot and the dancers were glad to find a bit of shade at the Abbey Gateway.

The troop in green are The Oyster Girls, a clog dancing side all the way from the Isle of Wight. They crossed the sea to be here. Many thanks to them.

Dancers also found a cool shady area under the old County Hall. Pictured here are Masons Apron, a group originally from the Masons Arms in Headington, who have migrated to Long Hanborough over time.

Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers was formed in 1978, with local men who had previously danced with the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers.

In the last two years the Mr Hemmings group has opened up to women.

Another group on the day were the Garston Gallopers from East Garston in the valley of the race horse – a sport followed by Royalty.

Other groups included Bampton, Lepton Morris, Three Horse Shoes Morris, Ashnah American Tribal Style Belly Dancing, Mabel Gubbins: Rapper sword dancers and Stroud Morris. Stroud Morris are pictured above in the green and red jester tights – the green is for the hills, and the red for the famous red Stroud cloth.

P.S I have just requested my internet host to add a SSL certificate onto this site in moving with the times. The internet host will have to migrate it to a different server to make that work. If there are any problems in the migration the blog will move temporarily to twitter @abingdonblog.

At lunchtime on New Years Day there was dancing in the undercroft of the County Hall in Abingdon. The Old Speckled Hen Morris dancers,

and the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers were dancing.

The old year had died on December 31st, and January 1st was a new chance to dance and bring life to the new year. There was more dancing at the Broad Face and music for most of the afternoon.

There was an old custom in Abingdon to roast an ox in Ock Street at midsummer and distribute the meat among the poor. In the year 1700, this being done, a fight ensued between men from ‘up’ town and ‘down’ town for possession of the horns. The men of ‘down’ town won, and it became a trophy they still hold to this day. Their leader was declared the Mayor of Ock Street.

In modern times there is an election for the Mayor of Ock Street – none of the fighting of our forebears. Those ox horns from ‘1700’ are on show. After the election, the Mayor of Ock Street celebrates his victory by drinking from an applewood pint drinking cup, and is then carried in procession by Morris Dancers around Abingdon’s Ock Street.

The only qualification for having a vote is that you must live in Ock Street, or the adjoining courts. There are two candidates this year: Harry Knight – The previous mayor, and Duncan Brown – The reigning mayor. The election of the Mayor of Ock Street will be this Saturday.

Les Badcock led out the Mr Hemmings Traditional Abingdon Morris Dancers on their day of dance today. This is always held on a nearest Saturday to the birthday of former Abingdon Morris dancing legend Tom Hemmings who kept the Abingdon Tradition alive in the mid 19th century.

Teams included Summertown Morris, a women’s side from Oxford.

Ashnah, American Tribal Style Belly Dancers from Abingdon on Thames.

Morris Dancers from Adderbury Village, just south of Banbury;

Borderline from Arborfield, south of Reading,

and Windsor Morris – a female side dancing in the very bouncy style of the nineteenth century Cotswold villages of Badby and Brackley.
Near the Market Place were also members of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign. There could well be a lot of In Out In Out campaigning in the weeks to come.