The first printed source for country dances in Britain is the publication by John Playford in 1651 of The English Dancing Master, a collection of 104 dances, each presented with its own music. This volume of tunes and dance instructions was the first of eighteen editions that appeared over the next seventy-seven years. Many of the dances in that first edition probably derive from earlier times, but, despite literary references to the titles of certain of the dances, there are no specific choreographies prior to this publication. (The second and subsequent editions dropped the word English from the title, becoming simply The Dancing Master.)

Today, English Country Dance continues to thrive under the aegis of the English Folk Dance and Song Society and occupies an important corner of the international dance world. (Scottish country dance has its own history and particular style and is supported by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society and the Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust.)

The country dance may be regarded as Queen Elizabeth I’s legacy to the dance world. A keen dancer herself, she welcomed country dances to her court in the last years of her reign.

The seventeenth century is seen as the greatest flowering of the country dance which, contrary to popular belief, was not entirely suppressed by Cromwell’s puritan regime. Indeed, dancing continued to be enjoyed in the privacy of the long galleries of country houses, spaces that were ideally suited to the evolving longways formation of the country dance ‘for as many as will’. The first edition of the The English Dancing Master was published a mere two years after Charles I’s execution.

Samuel Pepys, in his diary entry for 31 December 1662, described a visit to Whitehall, where he saw a formal ball in progress. ‘… Then to Country dances; the King leading the first which he called for; which was – says he, Cuckolds all a-row the old dance of England.’

‘Cuckolds all a row’ in the first edition of The English Dancing Master (1651)

Many eighteenth-century dancing masters and music publishers followed Playford’s lead, composing new dances and publishing in increasing profusion, with names like Kynaston, Walsh, Rutherford and Thompson dominating the scene.

Kellom Tomlinson in The Art of Dancing (1720) said of country dance that it is ‘… become as it were the Darling or favourite Diversion of all Ranks of People from the Court to the Cottage in their different Manners of Dancing … .’

Throughout the eighteenth century, the formal minuet always opened the proceedings at Assemblies, but thereafter country dances were enjoyed. Comparing country dance to the intricacies of ballet steps, a writer, identified only as ‘A Lady of Quality’ in A Mirror of the Graces, made the following observation. ‘Their character is that of gay simplicity. The steps should be few and easy, and the corresponding motions of the arms and body unaffected, modest and graceful.’ In other words, dancing should be relaxed and enjoyable (as seen in the illustration below), although some of the dance patterns are still satisfyingly complex.

Thomas Wilson was the last (and most prolific) of a succession of publishers of country dances. His final publication appeared in 1821, when country dancing was being gradually superseded by the increasingly popular quadrilles and couple dances.

A longways country dance (etching by T. Rowlandson, 1790)

The collections of Playford, Bray, Kynaston, Walsh, Thompson, Rutherford and Wilson are mostly rare books not generally available outside specialist libraries. The principal library for studying English Country Dance is the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent’s Park Road, London, NW1 7AY.

Performing versions of a number of dances are given in the following:–

N. Broadbridge & M. Fennessy Purcell’s Dancing Master (Lanark, 1997) [with CD].

D. Cruickshank, The Lovers Luck: twenty country dances … by Thomas Bray 1699 (Salisbury, 2001) [with CDs].

P. Dixon Dances from the Courts of Europe, vols. IV, V, VII-IX (Nonsuch/Eglinton Productions) [with cassettes].

C. Helwig & M. Barron Thomas Bray’s Country Dances (New Haven, 1988) [with cassette].

K. Van Winkle Keller & G. Shimer The Playford Ball (London, 1990).

A. Shaw Mr Kynaston’s Famous Dance (Altrincham, 2000) [with CD/cassette]

P. Shaw Holland as seen in the English Country Dance (Netherlands, 1960).