Editing Thaxted (section)

== Thaxted and Morris dancing ==
The Thaxted Morris Men were formed in 1911<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Thaxted Morris |url=http://www.thaxtedmorris.org/history.html |website=Thaxted Morris Men |access-date=18 August 2023}}</ref> as part of the Morris dancing revival underway in the first half of the twentieth century. The Thaxted Morris is now the oldest revival side in the country.

During the Great War, many active Morris men were killed, and the Morris was predominantly women. By the 1930s, men predominated again. In 1934, the year that Holst died, the Cambridge Morris Men invited five other teams (Letchworth, Thaxted, East Surrey, Greensleeves and Oxford) to join them in the formation of a national organisation. Five of the six teams met at Thaxted on 11 May 1934 to inaugurate [[Morris Ring|The Morris Ring]].

The Ring, which has grown to around 180 sides, organises regular meetings. The annual Thaxted Morris Weekend, which takes place on the [[Spring Bank Holiday]] weekend, welcomes sides from all over the United Kingdom and the world. The weekend consists of a series of dancing tours, in which teams dance in the villages surrounding Thaxted, before reconvening in the town. The final dance of the evening is always the evocative [[Abbots Bromley Horn Dance]], performed by the host side from Thaxted, winding their way from the churchyard, down Stoney Lane and past the Guildhall, accompanied by a solitary fiddler. The Morris Weekend is a major tourist attraction pulling visitors to the town each year.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Read|first=Julian|title=A Thaxted tradition|url=https://www.essexlifemag.co.uk/out-about/places/a-thaxted-tradition-1-3626230|journal=Essex Life Magazine|date=3 June 2014|access-date=11 October 2020}}</ref>