Whely House

Whely House is an English Country Dance. It was published by Henry Playford (website) in 1702, London. It was interpreted by Pat Shaw (website) in about 1965 and published in Another Look at Playford. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

Playford writes:

The 1. cu. take Hands and lead up, then face about, the 2. cu. take Hands and lead down and face about at the same time, the 1. and 2. man hands a whole round, the 1. and 2. we. do the same at the same time The 1. and 2. man take hands and lead to the wall, then face about, the two we. do the same at the same time, and turn your Partners a whole round to their own places The 1. man and 1. wo. cross over into the 2. cu. places, and run the Figure of 8 in the inside of the 2. cu. places, the 1. man and wo. take hands and least down through the 3. cu. and cast up, the 1. mand and his wo. turn a Whole round into the 2. cu. places.

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, lead, figure eight, lead and cast, cross go below (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=WhelyHouse

< Prev Top Next >

The dance itself is out of copyright, and is in the public domain. The interpretation is copyright © ~1965 by Pat Shaw. 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 © 2021,2022,2023,2024 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.