{"id":35651,"date":"2026-07-11T21:09:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=35651"},"modified":"2026-07-11T21:09:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:09:23","slug":"mr-hemmings-day-of-dance-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=35651","title":{"rendered":"Mr Hemmings Day of Dance  &#8211; 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag26\/20260701110.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe annual <em>Mr Hemmings Day of Dance<\/em> took place in Abingdon today, hosted by <em>Mr Hemmings Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers<\/em>, who take their name from the former Abingdon dancer, <em>Tom Hemmings<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It was another hot day, so some of the dancing took place in the shade of the Abbey Gateway and beneath the County Hall, where a cooling breeze blew through. Four dance sides took part.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag26\/20260701106.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nMr Hemmings Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers, led by Les Badcock, hosted the event.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag26\/20260701109.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nOne of the visiting teams was Ashnah Tribal Dancers, from Abingdon, with their colourful,\u00a0 percussive performances .<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Summertown Morris dance &quot;Valentine&quot; at Mr Hemmings Day of Dance\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pwRBG7Eja48?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Also visiting were Summertown Morris, seen in this video dancing <em>Valentine<\/em>. I liked the tune so much when they performed it at the Mayor of Ock Street in June in Abingdon that I recorded most of the dance.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag26\/20260701104.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nAdderbury Village Morris came with two hobby horses. Adderbury like Abingdon has two traditional morris dancing sides.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag26\/20260701102a.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThere was audience participant on the Market Place. A bride-to-be, in running shoes, was chosen to stand at the centre of the dance\u00a0 <em>Maid of the Mill<\/em>. She had just completed the 5 km park run with family and friends, all dressed in wedding costumes.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag26\/20260701101.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nWith temperatures remaining high throughout the day, the Lighthouse Church were handing out free chilled water to help people stay hydrated.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag26\/20260701111.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe other major event in town was the opening of Browns Butchers. There was a queue stretching outside on the occasions I walked past. There may have been an opening-day offer that everyone knew about, or perhaps people were just keen to use the new traditional butcher&#8217;s shop in Abingdon town centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The annual Mr Hemmings Day of Dance took place in Abingdon today, hosted by Mr Hemmings Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers, who take their name from the former Abingdon dancer, Tom Hemmings. It was another hot day, so some of the dancing took place in the shade of the Abbey Gateway and beneath the County Hall, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dancing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}