Custom
Bampton Morris
Three sides, one town, no collisions.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Cotswold market town with pubs and greens
- Legend from
- Custom documented from 1847
- Best time
- Spring Bank Holiday Monday
- Tone
- Light-hearted
Three morris sides, one small town, one day a year, and they politely avoid each other.
Every Spring Bank Holiday Monday, once Whit Monday, the small town of Bampton fills with morris dancers. Locals claim the dancing has gone on for 400 years or more, but the earliest written record is from 1847, when a vicar grumbled that the standard was slipping. Since 1974 three rival sides have danced, each following its own route round the town and politely avoiding the others. Only the First World War has stopped it. Fiddlers play as the sides dance from pub to green.