Bristol Cross

Bristol Cross is an English Country Dance. It was published by Walsh in about 1735 in The Third Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master. It was interpreted by Andrew Shaw in 2024 and published in The Irish Howle. It is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

The same figure occurs in Wright, ~1740 who writes:

Note: Each Strain twice.
The 1st Man & 2d Wo. meet & turn, the 1st Wo. & 2d Man do ye same, 1st Man Back to Back with 2d Wo. & 1st Wo. ye same with 2d Man, the 1st Cu. whole figure, ye Man round 3d Cu. the Wo. round ye 2d Cu. then the Man round ye 2d Cu. & the Wo. round the 3d Cu.

The animation plays at 120 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. 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, figure eight, chevron, back to back (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=BristolCross

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The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2024 by Andrew Shaw. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2024 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
Creative Commons License 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.