Annotation:Ferry Bridge Hornpipe

Back to Ferry Bridge Hornpipe

---

FERRY BRIDGE HORNPIPE. English (originally), Irish, Irish-American; Hornpipe. England, Yorkshire. USA, Boston, Massachusetts. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Ferrybridge is a village on the Yorkshire side of the bridge which took the Great North Road (now the A1 Motorway) across the River Aire. This was the main road from London to Edinburgh via Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the name of Ferrybridge was and is accordingly known far beyond its immediate vicinity. The tune is found twice under this name: once in the MS tune book of fiddler Joseph Leadley (1827-1897) of Helperby in Yorkshire (England), and once in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883, p. 130 - where it is annotated “can be used as a clog” and "as performed by J. Hand”). Subsequently it inevitably appeared in Coles 1000. New York City writer, musician and researcher Don Meade believes the reference if to one of two brothers, John and James Hand, who were fiddlers and stage performers in the Massachusetts area in the mid-19th century. The tune was recorded in London by Peter Wyper, the Scots melodeon player, with "Auld Robin Gray" and entitled simply "Hornpipe", in c. April 1910 (Rena 1434, Columbia-Rena 1434, Regal G 6968, Regal Zonophone G 6968). It became so associated with him that it acquired his name, and is often referred to as “Wyper's”. An almost identical setting was played by Peter Turbit, of Balleygawley (Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland) and recorded by Alan Feldman, who published it (again simply as "Hornpipe") in his Northern Fiddler (1979, p. 247 [1/3]).

Philip Heath-Coleman [1] has identified the “Ferry Bridge Hornpipe” as one of a number of tunes which were central to the Anglo-Hibernian hornpipe tradition, and thus closely associated with the step-dancing craze which swept the British Isles (and indeed the English-speaking world) during much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Its popularity, however, has been rendered invisible by the fact that every other setting on record is called something different. The earliest – which already shows some of the rhythmic development of later traditional settings - is in the MS tune book (dated 1845 – 1848) of Ellis Knowles, of Bolton, Lancashire (England), where it is untitled (though it has been published in modern times as his Reel no. 7). A similar, but rhythmically more developed setting was recorded by Russell Wortley in 1954 from the Forest of Dean fiddler Stephen Baldwin in Gloucestershire (England), under the title of the "Coleford Jig" (Coleford being a town in the Forest of Dean, and jig (presumably) being used in the common southern English sense of solo dance).

Irish settings showing a more or less similar rhythmic development were published by Breathnach (Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol. IV, no. 222) – this being an untitled (“Gan ainm”) setting from the 19th C MS of Dan Sheahan of Co. Kerry (Ireland) (vol. 11, p.8), who described it as “a splendid hornpipe” -, and by O’Neill under the names of "Limerick Junction" (Music of Ireland no. 1720), and "Raftery’s Favorite" (not “Hornpipe” as sometimes stated – Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody, 1922, no. 362) which he attributes to the fiddler Edward Cronin, originally of Limerick Junction, Co. Tipperary (Ireland) and “J.P Tamoney” of San Francisco respectively (Cronin being credited with "Limerick Junction" above "Raftery’s Favorite" in Waifs and Strays: in Music of Ireland O’Neill actually names his source as his collaborator Sgt. James O’Neill of the Chicago Police). Caoimhin Mac Aoidh (1994) has identified the latter as a fiddler named Joe Timoney, known in Donegal as Joe Phaedar Sheain O Tiomanai, who was born and raised at Min a tSamhaidh, Fintown, Donegal, and who was the great-great-great-great-great grandson of the renowned poet Tadhg an Fhile O’Tionamai an Aighe. Timoney emigrated to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century and arrived in San Francisco just after the great earthquake of 1906. [O’Neill].

As well as the “Ferry Bridge Hornpipe” itself, Ryan’s Mammoth Collection also includes a setting under the name of the "Birmingham Hornpipe" (p.125) which is almost identical to O’Neill’s "Rafterys’ Favorite."

It should also be noted that O’Neill’s "Honeysuckle (2) (The)/Honeysuckle Hornpipe" (Music of Ireland, 1903, no. 1653 and Dance Music of Ireland, 1907, no. 874) combines the 2nd strain of the "Ferry Bridge Hornpipe" and the 1st strain of another hornpipe from the same canon – the "Railway Hornpipe", while the tune O’Neill published as "Limerick Junction" in Dance Music of Ireland (no. 820) combines the 1st strain of our "Limerick Junction" (Music of Ireland no. 720) and a new 2nd strain, possibly, as Paul de Grae has suggested, composed by James O’Neill.

The Ferry Bridge Hornpipe was recorded by Cape Breton fiddler Winston Fitzgerald, paired with "Sumner's Hornpipe," which appears on the same page in Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) just below "Ferry Bridge." The first strain is shared with Francis O'Neill's "Dooley's Fancy" and "Diamond (1)" (the latter is also printed in Ryan's Mammoth Collection). [NB: Time signature should be: 2/2 (Ryan’s), 4/4 (Leadley)]

Source for notated version: an MS collection by fiddler Lawrence Leadley, 1827-1897 (Helperby, Yorkshire) [Merryweather & Seattle]; Peter Chaisson, Jr. (b. 1942, Bear River, North-East Kings County, Prince Edward Island) [Perlman]; Winston Fitzgerald (1914-1987, Cape Breton) [Cranford].

Printed sources: Ryan's Mammoth Collection, 1883; p. 130. Merryweather & Seattle (The Fiddler of Helperby), 1994; No. 27, p. 35. Cole (1000 Fiddle Tunes), 1940; p. 95 (from Ryan's Mammoth Collection). Cranford (Winston Fitzgerald's Collection), 1997; No. 34, p. 12. Perlman (The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island), 1996; p. 79.

Recorded sources: Rounder CD 11661-7033-2, Natalie MacMaster - "My Roots are Showing" (2000. Appears as "Ferry Bridge Clog").

---