The first recording of “Over The Lancashire Hills” was by the composer, Stuart Marson, on a cassette album that I produced which called “Ear to the Ground”, which was a compilation of folk musicians from Northamptonshire. Stuart contributed this song, “Close to the Wind” and “Captain Pouch”. The album was recorded in the early 1980s at Dave Pegg’s Woodorm Studio at Barford St Michael. Some of the sessions were engineered by Dave Pegg, and others by Mark Powell. It was through this that Fairport Convention got the song “Close to the Wind” and that Simon Nicol got this song.