No, I'm not in the UK, I'm in the American Midwest.
I add chords to the pieces I put up for my friends. The guitarist has to have chords, the harps sometimes use them, and they form a nice framework for improvising once we have the piece under our belts.
Once I went to a session with Don Pedi, a dulcimer player and teacher from North Carolina. He said that at home, they play a "twenty-minute tune." Meaning, don't give up playing a short tune too soon. That phrase has become a standard with us. I doubt if we actually play a dance for twenty minutes, but it is true that we are no longer afraid to play one over and over, until we are really going to town.
One night recently I gave the gang a tune from 1595 called the Tarleton Jig. As we played, it morphed from the demure to the sybarytic. It was great.