Kirtlington 2026
What a fantastic end to a week this proved to be, after being near on slow roasted for the best part of 8 hours in the sun on Bank Holiday Monday at Bampton I was once more in the car and heading across to Oxfordshire, this time to the wonderfully picturesque village of Kirtlington for their annual “Lamb Ale” event.
Usually this 2 day event held over a weekend sees invited morris teams dance on both Saturday & Sunday alongside the host team Kirtlington Morris, for 2026 however an alteration to schedule saw Kirtlington tour the village by themselves on the morning of Saturday 30th May with the guest teams joining them on Sunday 31st May for the normal event schedule.
I arrived in good time on the Saturday morning ready for the 10:30am start and once again, like Bampton on the Monday, the sun was blazing, the temperature was up and the sky was azure blue, lovely conditions to add some ‘pop’ to my photographs but possibly less than welcome for those about to embark on several hours morris dancing.
What an absolute privilege for me to be able to follow this most welcoming of teams around their own village for almost 3 hours taking in some of the most idealic village locations, truly a morris photographers delight ! - it was great to learn about some of their traditions as explained to me regarding the ‘hockleback’ leg move and the ‘hat stacking’
Roll on Sunday, and once again I took the journey from Leicestershire to arrive in Kirtlington just after 11:00am - different to the Saturday it was a little overcast, but still pleasant, this time there was more traffic and more people around as the Lamb Ale Sunday drew in the usual crowds.
Following the church service, the guest morris teams alongside Kirtlington form a procession from the church to the primary school on the main road in the village, this is a wonderful sight and a real crowd pleaser judging by the numbers I could see.
Kirtlington start the Lamb Ale Sunday off with the first dance in the primary school playing grounds and from there the guest teams make their way to various dance locations around the village over the next few hours, this is where (and experience for next time) I needed to listen to my intuition and stick at one optimal location and let the teams pass by me, instead of what I did (and attempt to track teams, not fully knowing who was where, at the various locations around the village) … oh well, it got the step count up !
Nonetheless I captured what I could where I could and came away with some pleasing results from some of the other teams I observed - once again an extended thanks and much appreciation to Kirtlington Morris for welcoming & allowing me to photograph them on the Saturday in what felt like their own space, it was a most enjoyable weekend and my curated observations across the two days can be seen in projects section of this website.
The Kirtlington ‘Hockleback’ - Kirtlington Morris, Kirtlington, Oxfordshire - May 2026