Oswestry Wake ~ Williams
Room for Beauties ~ Williams
Oswestry Wake ~ Williams or Room for Beauties ~ Williams is an English Country Dance. It was devised by Nathaniel Kynaston in 1716 and published in Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1716. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2022. It is a Quadruple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 48 bars. The tune is a jig.
Andrew Shaw says in Mr. Kynaston's Famous Dance that this dance is one of three quadruple minors (I've found 6 total).
Kynaston writes:
Each strain twice
The 1st. four cu. dance to each other, turn single and change places then dance as before turn single and change places the 1st. cu. go inside and outsides below the 4th. cu. and turn single take all hands, turn half round and back again the 1st. cu. lead up to the top and turn single then figure through the 2d. cu. and turn down the middle
John Young republished it inThe Dancing Master, Vol. the Second, 3rd ed. (1718):
Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.
The first four Cu. dance to each other, turn single and change Places Then dance as before, turn single and change Places The first Cu. go inside and outside below the 4th Cu. and turn single Take all Hands turn half round and back again The first Cu. lead up to the Top and turn single Then Figure thro' the 2nd Cu. and turn down the Middle
John Young also published it in his third volume (1726) as Room for Beauties.
Oswestry is a town in Shropshire.
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 dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.
| A1 | 1-4 | Set twice to partner |
| 5-8 | Turn single and change places with partner | |
| A2 | 1-4 | Set twice to partner |
| 5-8 | Turn single and change places with partner (all home) | |
| B1 | 1-6 | 1s take hands, lead between 2s, outside 3s, between 4s, stopping below them |
| 7-8 | 1s turn single away | |
| B2 | 1-4 | Circle eight left... |
| 5-8 | ...and back to the right | |
| C1 | 1-6 | 1s lead up to the top |
| 7-8 | 1s turn single away | |
| 9-12 | 1s half figure eight down through the 2s | |
| 13-16 | 1s two hand spiral down once and a half as the 2s long cast 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=OswestryWake
The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © 2022 by George Williams. And is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. My visualization of this dance is copyright © 2022 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.