Gloucestershire Christmas

Glos Christmas is not the only place to find seasonal songs from Gloucestershire.  Our sister site GlosTrad, has over 1300 songs and tunes of which a good many are related to the Christmas season.  Many of the items are the same as you will find on here, but there are some extras.

Visit www.glostrad.com and type Christmas into the search box.

The Glos Christmas site was orginally set up as a pilot project to prove the concept of a regionally based folk archive.  Based on this, the Heritage Lottery Fund supported the GlosTrad project and we recruited a large band of volunteers to transcribe the manuscripts and field recordings.

Despite the overarching scope of the GlosTrad project, this Glos Christmas site will remain on-line as a Christmas focused resource and archive.

The ‘Single Gloucester’ project is being led by Gwilym Davies and others, and aims to bring together as many local songs and tunes as possible into one, easily accessible place. This will include Christmas Songs. If you would like to know how you can help in the project, please get in touch via  http://www.glosfolk.btck.co.uk/SingleGloucesterresource

As a result of this new project which started this year (2013), this Christmas site will not be significantly updated at present.

Thanks you to all who supported and used the site during the 2012 season. We are resting, but for the 2013 season we hope to add more carols and mumming information and hope to encourage the singing out of some of these traditional carols. Get in touch if you’d like to help or sing-out.

You may also have contributions:-  Do you have a traditional carol in your family?  Do you have cassettes of departed relatives talking about wassailing in their village?  Do you know the history of some of the singers? Mumming?  Etc. Why not drop us a line…  Contact

Sunday 23 December, at 1200-1300 (UK time) BBC Radio Gloucestershire (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radiogloucestershire) will present a programme on Gloucestershire folk carols, on the Pete Wilson show.  If you can’t hear it at that time, there is a ‘Listen Again’ link on this page http://www.bbc.co.uk/radiogloucestershire/latest-programmes

New this week – a page where you can hear all the archive recordings – like a juke-box. Why not sing-along and then look in the song and singer pages for the history of your favourites.   One was recorded from a man who was born, married and had a family in Sheepscombe only to die in the Stroud Union in 1917. We hope this carol will be sung in the village again this year after probably 100 years absence. Is there a song from your area or village you’re learning to re-sing at Christmas? If so let us know.

If you are searching for Christmas events see the Christmas Diary page. We expect more events will be added, so if you are organising a Wassail, Mumming or Caroling event over the Christmas period, please let us know the details via our Contact Page

For a list of all folk events over Christmas, e.g. folks clubs, dances and concerts, visit GlosFolk

After a few months off, we are starting to dust-off for 2012. We also hope some of these songs may be heard and sung and some mumming be played and mummed this Christmas. If you’d like to be involved, can contribute to site, would like to invite us to sing songs, etc. or have events to put in the diary please get in touch.

Added Sep-2012 Christ came to Christmas, plus wassails from Brockweir, Badminton, Hampton Fields, Shurdington, Uley and Tetbury, with words of the songs plus archive recordings. [Transcriptions to follow later]

A new book by local mummer Gerald Tween entitled ‘Step In’ is just published. It contains the scripts of 26 mummer’s plays from Gloucestershire, and considerable research from the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (London) and the Bodleian Library (Oxford) and scripts from the many mumming groups active in the county today. 107 pages, published by Vale Publishing Services ISBN 978-0-9514743-8, printed by KM Reprographics of Gloucester and available from the author, Amazon, or bookshops price £10.95

Thanks you to all who supported and used the site during the 2011 Christmas season. 

The posting below shows 64 traditional folk events that happened over the season – carol singing, wassailing and mumming.

Since the launch of the site in December 2011 its role has been growing as a source of information about our local traditions.

It is also set to grow further in readiness for the 2012 season, already we have plans to develop the site, there are new carols to add, lots of mumming information and possibly a carol competition – watch this space.

You may be able to help us.  Do you have a traditional carol in your family?  Perhaps there are some cassettes of departed relatives talking about wassailing in their village?  Or you may be a wizz on web-development?  Why not drop us a line…  Contact

If you are organising a Wassail, Mumming or Caroling event over the Christmas period, please let us know the details via our Contact Page

For other folk events over Christmas, e.g. folks clubs and concerts, visit GlosFolk