Welcome to the Isca Morris Website - Home of the Traditional Morris Dancers from South Wales performing Welsh Border and Cotswold Morris dances together with local Mumming Plays, Wassailing ceremonies and the Mari Lwyd custom



Return to the Home Page of the Isca Morris
Foreign Adventures
Isca Morris in Action on May Morning as filmed by Japanese Television
Details of Family Weekends over the Years
Details of Major Events over the Year
Isca appearing at the Pontardawe Festival along with our good friends, The Men of Sweyns Ey
The Morris Ring 2003 Annual Representatives Meeting run by Isca Morris in Monmouth / Cyfarfod Blynyddol Cynrychiolwyr 2003 y Cylch Morus Trefynwy
Site Map
Links to our favourite sites

2002 Family Weekend

Brynglas House Silver Jubilee Family Weeknd
Silver Jubilee Family Weekend Ampitheatre
Silver Jubilee Family Weekend Tours
Silver Jubilee Family Weekend Celebrations
Silver Jubilee Family Weekend Magor
Silver Jubilee Family Weekend Farewells
Silver Jubilee Family Weekend Behind the Scenes
Silver Jubilee Family Wknd Alderley Play

Red Hart Triple Silver Jubilee Weekend
2000 Family Weekend
2000 Family Weekend Photographs
1999 Family Weekend
1998 Family Weekend


Isca Morris Silver Jubilee Family Weekend

As part of their twenty fifth anniversary celebrations, the Isca Morris held a very large family weekend of dancing with 17 groups travelling from all over the country to celebrate in South Wales.

The Saturday Massed Spot

The public celebrations began with around 200 dancers and musicians congregating on Caerleon Ampitheatre on Saturday 8th September from 9.30 a.m. until 10.30 a.m.  Caerleon (or Isca Silurum) means literally the Camp of the Legion. Here in Museum Street are the remains covering some 50 acres where 6,000 troops of the Roman 2nd Augustan Legion moved from the Rhine and established a stronghold in AD80 to subdue the Silurian inhabitants of the region. During the three hundred years of Roman occupation, Caerleon was the most important centre west of the River Severn. The primary defence was a square of stone ramparts five feet thick enclosing an area of some fifty acres. Within this curtain of wall, pierced only by four gates, one to each wall, was laid a geometric pattern of roads and barracks, cookhouses and stables and in the centre of the fortress lay the headquarters of the Legion.

 Caerleon Amphitheatre

Around the walls grew up a civil settlement with villas, wharfs and brickworks. Outside the South-Western gate, the Romans in the 1st Century dug a great oval amphitheatre some 267 by 222 feet big enough to seat nearly 6,000 men. Here gladiators fought with men and beasts in the same area where each May 1st the Isca men welcome the dawn.

Displays continued with the performers joining one of five coach tours and performing at the following locations:

11.15 a.m. to 11.45 a.m.
Cripple Creek Inn,
Bryngwyn
Hen and Chickens, Abergavenny
Nags Head, UskPunch House, Monmouth
Star Inn, Llanfihangel Tor-y-Mynydd
12.30 p.m. to 1.00 p.m.
Crown Inn, PantygelliFountain Inn, Trellech Grange
Lion Inn, TrellechOstrich Inn, Newland
Red Hart, Llanvapley
2.45 p.m. to 3.15 p.m.
Boat Inn,
Penalt
Horse and Jockey Inn, Llanvihangel
Horseshoe Inn, MamhiladStar Inn, Mamhilad
Wain-y-Clare, Cwmoody

On Sunday 9th the dancing continued between 11.45 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. with all the groups dancing outside the Golden Lion in Magor with the main square closed off to traffic for the dancers.

During this event, some seventeen groups danced and the Isca Morris welcomed representatives from the following sides to the weekend:-

Adlington Morrismen - A Cotswold side hailing from Cheshire
Alford Morris - A mixed cotswold group from Lincolnshire
Belles and Broomsticks - A lively ladies group from Guernsey
Brisingamen - A ladies group based near Stockport
Broadwood Morrismen - Another Cotswold style group from Sussex
Dog Rose - A group of young male dancers hailing from Yorkshire
Fleet Morris - A ladies group from over the border in Hampshire
Greenwich Morrismen - The millenium wonders with their own Cotswold style
Isca Morris - The local hosts and weekend organisers

Ripley Morrismen
Ripley Morrismen display their newest female "male" members

John O’Gaunt Morrismen - A group from Lancaster performing North West Clog plus local stave dances
Old Speckled Hen - Another lively street clog group, this time a mixed team from Oxfordshire
Queens Oak Morris - A ladies group based in Northamptonshire
Ripley Morrismen- Cotswold dancers from Ripley in Derbyshire
Sweyns Ey Morrismen - One of the two other Welsh morris men's sides based in Swansea
Sergeant Musgraves Dance - A fresh face mixed clog group from Nottinghamshire
Treacle Eaters - Ladies clog dancers from Somerset
Winkleigh Morris - A mixed grouping from Devon

Further details of the Tours made by the dancers are available by selecting one of the choices on the top left of this page. Pages of photos and details of other previous weekends are also available from these menu choices.

Massed Dancing in Magor

Our oldest former member and musician, the late Harry de Caux, enjoys the spectacle in Magor as he approached his 90th Birthday


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