Thanks to Linda and Richard for introducing me to the Ashmore Filly Loo.
Ashmore is located in an area of chalk downland know as the Cranborne Chase. One of the highest villages in the south of England and the highest in Dorset it lies 700 feet above sea level.
The Great Pond, AshmoreOne of the major problems for hilltop settlements like Ashmore was that of water supply. The chalk drained the water away, so to preserve water the hilltop settlers dug holes in the chalk and lined them with clay to retain water. These 'Dew Ponds' provide water for livestock grazing on the hills or on their way to markets where a natural supply of surface water may not be have been readily available. Few remain today and Ashmore village has grown up around one of the oldest and most famous ponds in the country. Even the villages very name is mentioned in the Domesday Book as 'Aisemere' derived from the Old English 'aesc and 'mere' meaning "pool where the ash trees grow'.
Due to the villages height above sea level the relationship between evaporation and condensation was such that very little water was lost to evaporation. It is seldom dry even in the hottest season.
However occasional there have been rare occurrences when the pond has dried out completely. Edward William Watson, in his 1859 publication "Ashmore, Co. Dorset: a history of the parish with index to the registers, 1651 to 1820" writes an account of the time when this happened and the traditional village custom associated with it.
The great pond, from which the village takes its name, (for Ashmore is a corruption of Ashmere, little more than three hundred years old ; Ashmeer occurs in a will of 1698) sixteen feet deep opposite the Rectory, has nothing to equal it among the chalk downs of the neighbourhood, nor indeed in all the down country of Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. In all probability, however it may have been enlarged, its beginnings are natural ; it must be a swallow-hole, like those in the Yorkshire limestone. It rarely fails, though it is only fed by rain water. Perhaps, on an average, it is dry once in twenty years; and then the villagers, by ancient custom, hold a feast. Cakes are baked, and eaten round the margin and in the bed of the pond ; and the farmers haul out the hundreds of cart-loads of mud which have accumulated on the bottom, and lay them on their land. By a curious coincidence, the pond happened to dry, and the feast was held, in 1887, the Jubilee Year."
Dancing with the Green ManIn 1956, this old custom was revived by Peter Swann, as a folk dance festival called the 'Filly Loo'. With the cooperation of the Ashmore Folk Dance Club and guests from Warminster, Westbury and other villages in Dorset and Wiltshire the festival has been traditionally held on the Friday evening nearest to the Feast of St. John the Baptist or Midsummer's Day - 24th June.
The festivities begin when popular Folk and Celidh Band 'Hambledon Hopstep Band' begins to play, calling the villagers out to take part in the first dance, led by a Green Man. Dancing continues throughout the evening, with the North Dorset childrens dance group 'The Steps in Time' and the White Horse Morris from Wiltshire
By dusk, the celebrations reach their climax with the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. This is a torch lit procession with six antlered deer-men and four other colourful costumed characters: a Maid Marion, a bowman, a hobbyhorse and a fool.
The procession and dance is accompanied by a haunting solo melody in a minor key, which is very atmospheric. The celebration finishes with the torches in the ground around the pond and every reveller joins hands around the large village pond for a final dance.
Негізгі бет Ashmore Filly Loo 20 June 2014
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