24 July 2014 - St. Mary Platt

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Putting their best foot forward during St. Helens
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Marlings Morris are a small but enthusiastic women's North West clog side based in Edenbridge. They are accompanied by a very impressive band — but then again so is Kettle Bridge of course.

We arranged to share a stand with Marlings at the Blue Anchor pub in Platt. The landlord had thoughtfully cordoned off part of the car park to provide an excellent dancing area. Thankfully the recent fine weather continued so we enjoyed a good evening. The light was starting to fade as we began our stand (well that's my excuse for the slightly fuzzy photographs) and, as usual, we took turns to perform.

Marlings put on a very energetic and athletic display which was very pleasing to watch. Kettle Bridge chose to dance Prescot, KBC Processional, Lostock, Annie's, St. Helens and Cossington, followed by an all-in Churchtown to round off proceedings. Another very pleasant evening spent with a great bunch of people.


Just as a footnote, I thought I would try to determine how Marlings got their name. Their web site doesn't give any clues so I have to resort to conjecture.

Theory 1 : Perhaps they have some connection with Marling School in Gloucestershire which was named after Sir Samuel Marling. Not very likely though.

Theory 2 : Laura Marling is a folk musician from Hampshire but she would have been only 11 years old when Marlings Morris was formed in 2001 so that can't be the origin of the name.

Theory 3 : The next Marling to consider was born in Ireland and was reasonably successful in her career, earning nearly half a million pounds in just a few years. However, she had retired by 2001 so is probably not relevant. Did I mention that she was a racehorse? Her Grandsire was called Northern Dancer, though, so perhaps we shouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

Theory 4 : If all else fails, look in the dictionary. Marl is apparently "An unconsolidated sedimentary rock or soil consisting of clay and lime, formerly used as fertiliser" so marling is the process of putting this fertiliser on a field. It is hardly likely that Marlings are named after a muck‑spreading activity but you never know. Kettle Bridge are named after a kitchen appliance and a card game so anything is possible. Perhaps someone from the side can enlighten me on the true origins of the Marlings name.

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Kettle Bridge Clogs web site by Stephen Cordery is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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