Resources …
We have listed a range of useful resources here. Our repertoire is predominantly built on tunes from historic Dorset manuscripts. The Dorset History Centre have been wonderfully supportive in providing access to this material and do a fantastic job of promoting and caring for these valuable sources. The following two 19th Century collections (with material dating from earlier periods), have been our biggest inspiration:
Music associated with Thomas Hardy …
The most well known collection is that of the Hook / Locke / Hardy Manuscripts. Thomas Hardy, the poet and novelist, was raised in a musical family. His father and uncle played the fiddle, and his grandfather was a cellist. They played for the parish band at Stinsford church which housed a west gallery specifically for the performing musicians. By all accounts, Hardy had a passion for playing the traditional tunes himself on the fiddle, and as a child, he used to dance to his father’s fiddle playing, trying to dance with more vigour to hide his tears as he would be overwhelmed by the beauty of the music. Music made a profound impression on Hardy, and his literary outputs are full of memorable, detailed and moving musical references.
After Hardy’s death, the family music manuscripts were given by Hardy’s sister to Mr Locke, which are now in the custody of the Dorset History Centre. The collection contains music written down by three generations of the Hardy family (all confusingly named Thomas Hardy!). The literary Thomas Hardy's grandfather, Thomas Hardy 1st, played cello for a local dance band and was choirmaster in the Church at Puddletown. In around 1820, he was given a manuscript book of dance tunes, songs and psalms as a present from his friend, James Hook. Of the dance music, the book contains jigs, reels and hornpipes, and later as fashions changed, forms such as quadrilles, waltzes and polkas also appear.
The second Son of Thomas Hardy the 1st, was Thomas Hardy the 2nd, and he was especially known for his fiddle playing for dancing and compiled his own manuscript book of 97 dance tunes. This Thomas Hardy, was the father of the literary Thomas Hardy. Towards the end of the manuscript, the Hardy we know added quadrilles and polkas, again reflecting new trends in dance music
Music associated with Benjamin Rose …
Benjamin Rose was a farmer, alehouse keeper and musician from Belchalwell, Blackmore Vale, North Dorset. In 1820, Rose captured 133 dance tunes, some of 19th century origin, but some dating from earlier periods The manuscript was revived by Tim Laycock and founding member of Dorset Fiddles, Colin Thompson. In 2012, they made the manuscript more accessible by publishing its content (for enquiries contact us) and donated the original to the Dorset History Centre
Online Resources …
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and Archive:
The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML) is the library and archive of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), based at its home, Cecil Sharp House in London. It is England’s national folk music and dance archive, an essential resource for anybody interested in the folk arts. Founded in 1930 as the Cecil Sharp Library to house Cecil Sharp’s personal book collection, it is now a multimedia library of distinction, containing books, periodicals, sound recordings, moving images, photographs, artefacts and archival materials.
It is a comprehensive collection containing the largest number of folk-related manuscripts in England, providing invaluable insight into folk history and regional variation. It's ‘Take Six’ and ‘Full English’ projects paved the way towards creating what is now the world’s biggest free digital archive of English traditional folk songs, music and dance tunes. In 2018, a project in collaboration with The American Folklife Centre, The Elphinstone Institute and AHRC, made the digitised collections of James Madison Carpenter available to the public for the first time.
Search their archival catalogue by collector, title, first line, collector, place, etc. Their digitised historical dance and tune books are also a fantastic resource
This music project is primarily interested in the traditional social dance music of England: where it came from, where it went to, who it travelled with and where it is now
This resource is maintained by the Bodleian Libraries and features the Bodleian's digital collections of ballads, with links to the English Broadside Ballad Archive’s digital presentations of pre-1800 ballads from other libraries, and to the folk song scholarship of the Roud Broadside Index, hosted by the English Folk Dance and Song Society
Throughout his life Peter Kennedy [1922-2006] was deeply involved with collecting, researching and publishing British and Irish folk and traditional music and customs. Working for the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), the BBC and independently, he recorded hundreds of musicians around the UK and Ireland between the 1950s and the 2000s – often in collaboration with other prominent collectors of the time, including Alan Lomax, Hamish Henderson, Sean O’Boyle and Seamus Ennis. This website focuses on the periods during the 1950s when Peter travelled around the UK and Ireland recording traditional musicians and local customs whilst working on the BBC’s ‘Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme’. Peter documented his collecting trips and this website turns these pages into interactive images to present the story of Peter’s collecting trips in his own words, ‘attaching’ his sound recordings and photographs to his text, presenting us with a unique insight into Peter’s work and the music of his era
A semantic index of North American, British and Irish traditional instrumental music with annotations, formerly known as The Fiddler's Companion
Further Reading …
Brocklebank, J. (1977) The Dorchester Hornpipe: Thirty Four Country Dance Tunes from the Manuscript books of Thomas Hardy I, Thomas Hardy II and Thomas Hardy. Dorchester: Dorchester County Museum.
Brocklebank, J. and Kindersley, B. (1948) A Dorset Book of Folk Songs, illustrated by Joyce Davey. London: The English Folk Dance & Song Society.
Dodge, A. (1998) ‘Hardy and the
Firor, R. (1931) Folkways in Thomas Hardy.
Gibson, J., ed. (1999) Thomas Hardy: Interviews and Recollections. London
Goddard, D. (1971). ‘As a Boy He Had an Unusual Ear for Music.’ English Dance and Song, Vol. 33:14-15.
Hammond, H.E.D. and Sharp, C. (1908) Folk-songs from Dorset, collected by H. E. D. Hammond, with pianoforte accompaniment by Cecil J. Sharp. London: Novello.
Laycock, T., Thompson, C. and Rose, B. (2012) Benjamin's Book: The Complete Country Dance Manuscript of Benjamin Rose. Dorset: Laycock and Thompson.
Pollard, M. (1992) ‘Thomas Hardy and Folk Music.’ The Thomas Hardy Journal, Vol. VIII, no. 1:40-44.
Purslow, F., Hammond, H.E.D and Gardiner, G.B. (1972) The constant lovers : more English folk songs from the Hammond & Gardiner Mss / selected & edited by Frank Purslow. London: E.F.D.S. Publications.
Purslow, F., Hammond, H.E.D and Gardiner, G.B. (1965) Marrow Bones: English Folk Songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Ms, selected and edited by Frank Purslow. Illustrations [by] Maire Magee. London: E.F.D.S. Publications.
Sherman, E. (1940). ‘Music in Thomas Hardy’s Life and Work.’ Musical Quarterly, Vol. 26:143-71.
Townsend, D and Hardy, T. (2023) A Wessex Band Book: Tunes from the Hardy family Manuscripts and other Dorset sources: arranged in four parts, suitable for most instruments / compiled and arranged by Dave Townsend. Littlemore: Serpent Music.
Trim, R., Shutler, P., Sartin, B., McCulloch, M., Yetties Group (1990) The musical heritage of Thomas Hardy, volume 1 / tunes edited by Roger Trim, chords by Pete Shutler, quotations selected by Bonny Sartin, photos and picture research by Mac McCulloch, collectively known as the Yetties (Blyth: Dragonfly Music).