British Customs on Hampstead Heath

In my quest to find remaining British traditions I have been out about when the weather was fine and one trip was out to Hampstead Heath for the Conker championships, welly wanging and morris dancing.

The morris dancers were from Cecil Sharpe House, somewhere I still need to visit, and they had traditional costume including the hankies. Interestingly I did hear a few comments from people about how ridiculous they were. One Mom telling her children that in very negative way. What is it about the Morris that brings up such ridicule? is it just the hankies? Have we lost some of the actual power and real meaning of the dances? It will be interesting to find out more.

The conker championship had a lot of contestants, and it was one of the morris dancers who was last years champion and also won this year.


The welly wanging competition also saw some serious competition, actually it was all good fun there with stalls and info about the heath and other places nearby.



I took photos, noticing the long shadows as we're moving into that low Autumn sun now. The trees are only just getting their Autumn colours though. It will be good to get to the parks when they are really colourful.

5000 Morris Dancers at the South Bank.

The Southbank was filled with Morris Dancing and Folk Music the weekend 4th and 5th Sept.

I managed to see a number of Morris troupes, take some photos and listen to a bit of music while I was there. I have been bringing these aspects of pagan and folk traditions together in my mind and thinking about a body of work in this direction for some years.

The connection to the land or environment is important as well as the aspect of spirituality for me in the folk traditions, somewhere there also needs to be the contemporary political and urban experience too. I am pleased to find this particular focus for part of my art work.

At The Southbank I really enjoyed Boggart's Breakfast. their site here. I liked the rag jackets, or tatters, their semi goth black and blue colours with sparkly bits and the energetic performances with great musicians.
Belles of London City, danced with traditional bells and hankies site here and the Stone Monkeys site here, wove intricate dance steps and swords.
Gog Magog were the Molly Morris Dancers, with fab brightly coloured clothes, hair, faces and shoes.