Adderbury Day of Dance

The Day of Dance is Adderbury's own morris day, held on a Saturday in late April: 25 April in 2026, 26 April in 2025, 27 April in 2024 and 22 April in 2023. No date for 2027 has been published: on the pattern of 2023 to 2026, the fourth Saturday of April, it would be 24 April 2027, but treat that as to be confirmed. Watch the Adderbury Village Morris Men's site (opens in a new tab): in 2025 its notice went up only four days ahead. It runs from mid-morning until the early evening, and we found no ticket or charge in any account.

What happens

The village has three sides of its own: Adderbury Village Morris Men, Adderbury Morris Men and Sharp and Blunt, the women's side. Each dances its own route, with guests in some years. The 2025 visitors came from Whitchurch, Ilmington, Hammersmith and Windsor. Ceremony comes first, in the churchyard of St Mary's: in 2026 a poem, the Day of Dance song and the first Hooky of the day, poured in honour of Charlie Coleman, the last surviving dancer of the pre-war side.

The only full timetable we have seen is from 2023, so use it as a guide to the shape of the day. The Village Morris Men gathered at 10.15am at the Old School, now the library, and went from the churchyard ceremony at 10.30am to the back of the Bell in Church Lane, the Streams, Rose Cottage and Colin Butler Green. All three sides were in the pubs through the afternoon, among them the Red Lion and the Coach and Horses, and they came together at the Bell at 5.30pm. That finish is the moment to aim for: Banbury FM's 2026 report describes a drinking dance between the sides, and then all three dancing as one. In 2026 about 40 people joined in Shepherds' Hey outside the Red Lion, so you may be asked too.

It suits anyone who wants to see morris danced in a village with its own tradition, with stops for a pint. Give the stick dances room: a squire told Banbury FM they can break knuckles.

Getting there and parking

Come by bus if you can. In 2026 the road through the village closed from 10am to 7pm, and there is no village car park. Stagecoach's S4 runs roughly hourly from Banbury, taking about 15 minutes, and Banbury station is 3 miles north. Drivers can try the south side of The Green, which is what the district council's walk leaflet suggests, and they should arrive early.

Why here

Janet Blunt of Adderbury wrote down the village's dances early in the twentieth century, and a blue plaque to her is outside Le Hall Place in Manor Road. Winnie Wyatt, who had worked for her, saved the manuscripts after Blunt's death. Those records made the revival of the mid-1970s possible, and the first Day of Dance was held in April 1975. The village's dancing is older than that: the squire of Adderbury Morris Men dates it to at least about 1700, which is his account and one we have not seen documented.