Greatham - The Village
The village of Greatham stands on a low ridge on the northern banks of the Tees estuary. To the north, and rapidly encroaching on its boundaries, stands the conurbation of Hartlepool, originally a small fishing and farming community, but with increasing industrialisation expanded to become a 'new town' of the 1850's. Two miles to the south is Billingham, also destined to become a 'new town', but in this instance, dating from the 1950's.
The current population is in the region of 2,300 inhabitants and the village is typical of many that are situated on the outskirts of a large town. Amenities include three public houses, two churches, a post office, a number of small shops, the village hall and a primary school.
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The village school now the village hall. |
The Hope and Anchor pub, Greatham. |
Greatham Hospital |
Greatham - The Sword Dancers
Greatham, being on the northern side of the River Tees, is in County Durham and therefore on the margins of the Yorkshire longsword tradition.
The existence of a dance tradition in the village was discovered by chance in 1935. An American collector, James Madison Carpenter, was touring the United Kingdom seeking folk songs and mummers’ plays and was recording the Hunton (near Richmond, North Yorkshire) play from a resident of the village and a visitor from Greatham prompted his informant when he hesitated. Following on from this, a few days later Carpenter visited Tom Armstrong, the leader of the Greatham dancers, to record the play and brief details of the dance. According to Carpenter’s notes Armstrong informed him that the play had been acted for 100 years. If this is correct, then the play element of the tradition would date from the first quarter of the 19th Century, but no evidence is available to either prove, or disprove, this statement.
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The group performing a lock |
Unusually, for collectors in those days, Carpenter made notes regarding his informants and the names of other participants. Thus we have a unique 'snapshot' of history whereby the names of a complete team are known and the parts that they played. Armstrong informed Carpenter that he last took part in 1922 and it is assumed that the names that Armstrong supplied are the team from that year.
Apparently the custom was only enacted sporadically in the years after 1922 and it was 1953 before the Greatham tradition next came to the attention of the folklorists. The schoolmaster, Charles Howard trained a team of schoolboys, to perform as part of the Coronation celebrations, following Armstrong’s verbal instructions. This revival became known to Dr Norman Peacock of Leeds University and he recorded the words and a full version of the dance from Tom Armstrong. The results of his research were published in the journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 1956.
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The Redcar Sword Dancers 2001 |
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Video Clip |