The Hole in the Wall
Inspired by Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams, for Playford style dances I have added a few extra symbols.
The Hole in the Wall is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1697 in An Additional Sheet of New Dances for the Second Part. It was interpreted by Douglas & Helen Kennedy in 1929 and published in Country Dance Book, New Series. Found in The Playford Ball. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 16 bars. The tune is in triple time. It is in the key: B flat major.
In editions 9-13 the dance is called "The Hole in the Wall", later editions omit the article and simply call it "Hole in the Wall".
The 1. cu. cast off below the 2. cu. and lead up in the middle The 2. cu. cast up and lead down the middleThe 1. Man cross over with the 2. Wo. and the 1. Wo. with the 2. Man, so all four Hands half round, and so cast off into the 2. Place, the rest do the like.
Note: There is no indication in either the Kennedies' interpretation, nor in Playford's words that the corner changes should be done with what I call a "hole in the wall cross".
For the crossings, the Kennedies say:
B 1-2 First man changes places with second woman. 3-4 First woman changes places with second man.
As far as I can tell Pat Shaw is the first to have used the term "hole in the wall cross" in his interpretations and dances. In 1960 his interpretations of both The Lover's Luck and Whimbleton House call for a "hole in the wall cross" (at least as transcribed in Another Look at Playford). While his own dance Miss Avril's Delight from 1971 may be the first modern dance to use the figure.
I assume that Pat would have used a hole in the wall cross when he taught the dance "Hole in the Wall", but as yet, I have no record of that.
The tune was composed by Henry Purcell as incidental music for a play from 1693. Originally a hornpipe, it is now performed at a slower tempo. It was performed by Bare Necessities (Earl Gaddis, Mary Lea, Peter Barnes, and Jacqueline Schwab) on the album Simple Pleasures. The music is used with permission from the Country Dance Society, Boston Centre, Inc.
The animation plays at 95 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.
An online description of the dance may be found here.
| A1 | 1-4 | 1s cast down, lead back |
| A2 | 1-4 | 2s cast up, lead down |
| B | 1-2 | 1st corners cross |
| 3-4 | 2nd corners cross | |
| 5-6 | circle half | |
| 7-8 | 1s cast down, 2s lead up |
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=HoleInTheWall
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is out of copyright in the US, but I'm not sure of other jurisdictions. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2020 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.