A Trip To Tunbridge: A Song History

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According to the Traditional Tune Archive, "Trip to Tunbridge" appears as No. 230, on page 95, of Preston's Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1793, issued around that year by the London firm of Preston & Sons.[1][2] The Archive gives "Green Grow the Rushes O" as an alternative title and classes the piece as an English country dance tune or march in cut or common time.[1][2] Sources differ on the key: the Archive's annotation and a modern dance database give E minor, while the Archive's tune page and transcription are in G major.[1][2][3] For context, the Archive observes that "Tunbridge was a fashionable resort and spa throughout the 18th century".[1]

Engraving of couples dancing a country dance in a large candlelit hall hung with portraits

William Hogarth, Analysis of Beauty, Plate 2 (detail), engraving, March 5, 1753. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for its dancing; it has no connection to this dance.

Two English dance databases also list a second, triple-minor dance under the same title, attributed to Walsh in about 1728.[4][5] The sources consulted here do not say whether that dance used the same tune as the 1793 one.[4][5]

The 1793 dance is known to modern dancers through A. Simons's 1961 interpretation.[3][4] It appears in Simons's Kentish Hops, a book of Kentish country dances mainly from the eighteenth century, and also in The Playford Ball.[3][6] Bare Necessities recorded it on the album Mrs. Beveridge's Triumph.[3] CDS Boston Centre's English dance log for 2010–11 records it four times, with callers citing both books as their source.[7]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Trip to Tunbridge" (annotation).
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Trip to Tunbridge" (tune page).
  3. upadouble.info: "Trip to Tunbridge".
  4. Playford's Progeny (Ottawa English Dance): "A Trip to Tunbridge".
  5. barndances.org.uk: "A Trip to Tunbridge II".
  6. Hatchards: "Kentish Hops: Kentish Country Dances Mainly from the Eighteenth Century".
  7. CDS Boston Centre: "Dance Repertoire, 2010–2011 (English)".