Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

September 2025 - It’s seven o’clock in the morning, on Wakes Monday, defined as the first Sunday after the fourth of September. Summer has all but ended, but Autumn is taking its time to wake properly from its slumber and hasn’t fully arrived yet. It’s cold, but nothing that a good jumper can’t fix.

A few hardy souls, me included, have gathered at the church of St. Nicholas in the quaint Staffordshire hamlet, that is Abbots Bromley, to celebrate a tradition that’s lasted for hundreds of years. No one is absolutely sure when it all began but it’s known to have been performed back in 1226* at Barthelmy Fair (or Bartholomew’s Fair, if you prefer) and has laid claim to the title of ‘oldest traditional dance in England’ for an awful long time now with no respectable challengers daring to question it. (*799 years in case you were wondering - I did the maths for you. You’re welcome).

Six ‘Deer Men’, have come to collect the horns and together with a Jester / Fool, a Hobby Horse, Bowman and Maid Marian, who is actually played by a man, will all dance to the accordion of a Minstrel, who himself is accompanied by a young boy who is required to hit his triangle loudly and often, for ten miles (16 km) around the surrounding areas.

Why ? Well, no one knows for sure but the general consensus is that it was originally a pagan ritual or perhaps a fertility rite that the passage of time took advantage of as a way of collecting alms for the poor of the parish or repairs to the church. Marian will carry a ladle for your loose coinage and the Fool will carry a bladder on a stick, for the same purpose - although you’re more likely to get collared by one of the other Deer Men, as there are twelve in total, and in between doing their share of dancing, will shake their modern day collecting tins at you as vigorously as any chugger will.

The horns, which tradition dictates must never leave the boundaries of the parish, are reindeer and didn’t completely appear as part of the ceremony until the seventeenth century - quite how a horn dance took place for four hundred years without horns, however, remains another mystery. The Hobby Horse appeared some a hundred and fifty or so years before though and the Triang-u-lator (the title of triangle player is a tad boring, I think, so I made a word up), well he didn’t put in an appearance until the nineteenth or twentieth century by all accounts. Today, it’s an event that sees visitors from all around the world to enjoy the spectacle and now includes craft stalls, live music, and of course plenty of English hospitality at the local hostelries.

The morning service lasted for a mere half hour - if the Catholics had’ve been involved it would have been a good hour, at least - but with the Service over the actual ceremony could begin. The Deer Men processed into the church and with the aid of a seven foot ladder, one of them climbed high and unlocked the first set of horns, which were subsequently paraded on to the altar as the other five sets were being unlocked and then paraded in the same manner.

Once they were all lined up, Reverend Simon Davis led everyone in prayer before the Fool / Jester took charge and requested that we uphold a two minute silence for those who couldn’t be with us this year.

The silence was impeccably observed; the horns were then raised on to the shoulders of the Deer Men for the first time in twelve months and paraded out of the church for the first dance of the day - but only once a small disaster had been averted with the aid of a mere safety pin. One of the Minstrels needed to repair the strap of his accordion so that he was able to actually carry them, as well as play, and once the fix had taken place the music could begin - and so could the first dance.

Once the dance had finished the parade then made its way down Church Lane, on to Bagot Street and around the village green ready for the second performance before heading down Goose Land and on to Admaston Village, a distance of three miles if you take the bridge over the Blithfield Reservoir, but twice that if you don’t, and you take the long way round !

The best part of four hours would pass before they would arrive at Blithfield Hall, having travelled the best part of five miles by now, and where they would break for lunch, but not before another dance in front a well-attended audience that had gathered on the bank on the other side of the dry moat to watch the performance and be relieved of any spare change that they may have lurking in their pockets, of course - those ‘extra’ Deer Men I mentioned earlier with their chugger tins were putting in a sterling performance and those tins must have been getting awfully heavy as the day progressed. Those that wished to have a souvenir for their contribution were able to take advantage of a wooden badge or choose from a fine selection of T-shirts.

Now, I’ll let you into a little secret. Not all of the distance between Abbots Bromley, Admaston Village, Blithfield Hall and back to Abbots Bromley is done by foot - some is done in a van, (shh, don’t tell !) I worked out that the whole trip would be around a dozen miles in total, and with all the dancing going on it would take around a dozen or more hours to do and be incredibly exhausting.

In the middle of the afternoon, they appear at the top of the High Street, back in Abbots Bromley, a good seven hours after they first left, and there’s more than a healthy gathering outside The Bagot Arms waiting for their arrival. The sun is still shining and the world is a wonderful place - but only for another ten minutes, it would seem, as dark clouds began to mask the sun and the light started to turn dark. Ten minutes later, just as the Dancers arrive outside the pub, the heavens opened and they, and all that had gathered outside to welcome them got more than a bit damp, to say the least.

Fortunately, the rain only lasted ten minutes or so and everyone had dived inside anyway, not least our Dancers for another well-earned scoop of the day - and I don’t mean ice cream ! ! There was good news to be had though in that whilst they were doing so, the dark clouds headed towards Lichfield, and whilst the sky wasn’t as blue as it was before, we were grateful for small mercies and the fact that we weren’t getting wet, as there were eight or more dances to go, and all outside, with only three of them involving hostelries, that could be dashed in to, for sheltering purposes only, you understand.

A little further down the road in the village green, stalls had been built and become laden with all sorts of gifts and souvenirs, including more of those wooden badges and T-shirts, as mentioned earlier. St. Nicholas’ Church was doing a roaring trade in second hand books and The Crown and The Goats Head had replaced The Bagot Arms as the hostelries of choice, each being graced with a dance of their own, with additional dances taking place in Schoolhouse Lane, Bagots View and Lichfield Road in between. Phew.

At a little after eight o’clock in the evening, the Deer Men, and all of the entourage, head back towards St. Nicholas‘s church to return the horns to their resting place, hung and padlocked for another year, and to the guardianship of Reverend Simon Davis, some thirteen hours after the celebration began. The final act of the whole event was a Service of Compline - from the Latin completorium, meaning ‘completion, as it brings the day to a close. How appropriate.

If you want to take part in it and follow it all from start to finish, you can, but just be aware, it’s a very long day, and you have to hope that the weather is with you, and don’t forget to take three or four packed lunches or a heavily laden wallet / purse to take advantage of the numerous public houses that are available for your delectation. It is a wonderful spectacle to witness, even in part, so put the date in your diary, Monday 7th September 2026, when they’ll do it all again for the 800th anniversary.

You can find more information on the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance on their Facebook page, by clicking here…

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