Graham's book contains music and dance notation of some dances, I believe, from the pennines, Royton, Colne, Mossley etc. I'm working from memory, I'm sure I had a copy but I can't find it.

The pe-amble describes written sources where the dance is mentioned in the NW but doesn't make any connection between early references, e.g. morris dancing and may games being forbidded by Cromwell, and later references mostly to Rushcarts with morris dancers.

I remember Rodger Bryant (the current keeper of the Manchester Morris Archive) telling me that the earliest reference to NW morris which can be connected to the present is about 1845. All the interviews and research carried in the 1850/60s by the likes of Bernard Bentley, Julian Pilling et al contains no references before the mid 1800s.

Pru Boswell's book on the morris dances of the Lancashire Plain also doesn't come up with any earlier references. It seems likely that the dances could be traced from the Pennine villages to the plain and into Cheshire later. The dances of Alderley Edge, Peover, Crewe etc. are relatively late. There are lots of examples of the dance moving with a leader or teacher who moved for work or when retiring.

Beware of assuming a connection from cotswold via Lichfield to NW. It doesn't hold up not least because of the doubtful provenance of the Lichfield dances.

Perhaps a more fruitful link is through Derbyshire Morris which still exists in Winster but was once more widespread. The Winster dances contain weaving figures both in 4s and in 8s which are also a part of the NW dances and there are some links in the tunes used. Both forms also exhibit influence from country dances. It might be possible to imagine an influence from migrating textile workers moving from the Derbyshire villages into the Derwent valley in the time of Arkwright and then into the NW.

Not all NW dances were (and are) done in clogs. The Leyland men were in Knutsford mayday procession only last week in there customary shoes.

Regards

Mitch