Barham Down ~ Cook
Inspired by Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams, for Playford style dances I have added a few extra symbols.
Barham Down ~ Cook is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1701 in The Dancing Master, 11th ed.. It was interpreted by Tom Cook in 1975 and published in Come Let's Be Merry. Found in The Playford Assembly. Originally proper this version is an improper duple minor longways dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars. It is in the key: D Major.
Playford writes:
First cu. cast off into the 2. cu. Places, then Arms round with both Arms, the same back again First cu. cross over into the 2. cu. Places, then go the half Figure, the 1. cu. lead down a-breast with the 3. cu. the 1. Man goes round the 3. Man, and the 1. Wo. the same with the 3. Wo. at the same time into the 2. cu. Places
Note: when couples at the top or bottom have no neutral (out) dancers to arm right with they should dance with ghosts rather than doing nothing. (From "The Playford Assembly")
The tune was published by Playford with the dance; and was synthesized by Colin Hume's software.
The animation plays at 110 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily (no music plays during this slow set). Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.
The dance contains the following figures: hand turn (allemande), cast, lead, figure eight, arming, cross go below (and probably others).
If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.
If you wish to link to this animation please see my comments on the perils of youtube. You may freely link to this page, of course, and that should have no problems, but use one of my redirects when linking to the youtube video itself:
https://www.upadouble.info/redirect.php?id=BarhamDown
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 1975 by Tom Cook. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2019 by George W. Williams V and is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This website is copyright © 2021-2025 by George W. Williams V
My work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Most of the dances have more restrictive licensing, see my notes on copyright, the individual dance pages should mention when some rights are waived.