ABBOTS BROMLEY ANNUAL HORN DANCE PERFORMED IN VILLAGE BAGOTS BROMLEY PARTICIPANT OF THE ANCIENT CUSTOM DANCERS HAD LUNCH AT THE MOATED MANOR HOUSE

The Bagot family's link with Abbot's Bromley is maintained by a performance of the ancient Abbot's Bromley Horn Dance at the Hall each September.

The Shell Guide to England reports Abbot's Bromley as having five inns, a cluster of old black-and-white cottages, a church with fourteenth century arcades, and an old butter cross, all of which make Abbot's Bromley one to the most charming villages in the county. 

But Abbot's Bromley owes its fame not to its buildings, but to its annual Horn Dance, normally performed on the Monday after the Sunday following 4 September. The dance, which is believed to have religious (or at least ritualistic) connections probably dates from before the Normans came to England in A.D. 1066.

Twelve people take part in the dance: a man on a hobby horse, a maid, a jester, a bow-man with a bow and arrow, six reindeer men wearing ancient reindeer antlers, and two musicians on accordion and triangle. They enact a mock battle at the climax of the dance. The horns used in the dance are hung on the walls of the north chapel of the parish church.

As in times past, with spectators looking on from inside the church, the dance begins in the church yard and goes about the streets around the lovely village displaying the band with a large crowd of spectators following them.

In ancient times, about lunch time they came to Bagot's Bromley at the moated manor house that belonged to the Bagot family. (The manor house was torn down and destroyed in 1811. A stone in Monument Field marks the site.) After having lunch with the Bagots, they would go about the streets until they approached the main part of the village for the finality. At each location a large crowd gathered to watch. During the all-day event they cover a large portion of the locality, which consists of fifteen to twenty miles.

The Shell Guide to England describes Blithfield Hall as being the home of the Bagot family and their ancestors, the De Blithfields, for almost 900 years. The present Hall, principally Elizabethan with Georgian and Regency additions, is open to the public. The annual Horn Dance is now performed on the lawn in front of Blithfield Hall. Presumably, the house was enlarged in Elizabethan times; but the hall is actually older and was the nucleus of the additions. The ceiling is eighteenth century, and covers the old roof beams of the original building. The Bagots relocated on the Blithfield estate near Bagot's Park. The front lawn of historic Blithfield Hall is shown here. The picture below it is the dance being performed on the front lawn.

The Treasures of Britain says that Blithfield Hall is a Museum of Childhood and Costume. The museum is situated in an Elizabethan house, which has been the home of the Bagot family for 600 years. In the landscaped gardens are a church, an eighteenth century orangery, and the descendants of a herd of goats given by King Richard II to Sir John Bagot.

Apparently the goats mentioned were given by the king in return for excellent hunting enjoyed at Blithfield. The ancestors of these goats were presumably taken from the Rhône Valley on one of the Crusades and brought back to England as traveling food. They are called Schwartzhal and are white with black beards, breast and neck. In the picture below, a herd of these goats is shown in Leven's Park in Cumbria, England. 

Blithfield parish is a fertile district, comprising the hall, rectory, and church of Blithfield and the hamlets of Admaston and Newton. It also has a number of scattered farmhouses. Blithfield and Admaston contain 1414 acres and Newton 1744 acres. Lord Bagot is lord of the manor, and owner of nearly all the parish. His Lordship resides at Blithfield Hall, an ancient mansion with embattled towers and walls, which gives it the air of a fortress. Bagot's Park, which forms part of the pleasure grounds, is distant one and a half miles to the northeast in the parish of Abbot's Bromley. It has been reported that most of the goats were living in Bagot's Park until about 1980.

The Bagots have been living on the old Blithfield estate since the fourteenth century. Ralph Bagot married Elizabeth de Blithfield, who was heiress to the Blithfield estate, and their children inherited it. Apparently Ralph's parents left Bagot's Bromley and moved to Blithfield, because most of the history about the family at Bagot's Bromley ceases at the time Ralph and his family moved to Blithfield.

It is said that there are still a few oaks on what was the old estate, but one particular tree is called Bagot's Walking Stick. This tree is about seventy feet tall and as straight as a die. It stands on the side of a hill on the old estate. It is wide and bushy and makes quite a monument.

The original Blithfield estate is situated in a beautiful English countryside, and the picturesque mountain scenery in the summertime explains why the family has lived there for centuries. The beautiful white goats trimmed in black actually add beauty to the mountain scenery.

There in a glass case situated at the entrance of Blithfield Hall is a family tree of the Staffordshire Bagots, but now belongs to the Staffordshire Historical Society.

The line of Bagots at Bagot's Bromley are the ancestors of Bagots that became Stafford. William Bagot, a cadet of the family, is named in a deed in 1160 with Hervey Fitz Bagod (presumed to be his father). He held two-thirds of a knight's fee from Robert de Stafford in 1166, which has been established as Bagot's Bromley. It was called Bradelie in Domesday.