Annotation:Kempshott Hunt

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 KEMPSHOTT HUNT. Scottish, Quickstep or Polka. A Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCC. While it appears to have originally been played as a quickstep march, it is often played nowadays as a polka. "Kempshott Hunt" appears in the John Clare (1793-1864) manuscripts. Clare was a fiddler, poet, writer and collector of songs and tunes who lived in the East Midlands village of Helpstone, near Stamford. In 1820 he published a successful collection of poems, entitled Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery by John Clare, a Northamptonshire Peasant, followed soon thereafter by The Village Minstrel (1821). Unfortunately Clare deteriorated in his 40's and was committed to asylums, and spent the last 23 years of his life in Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. He died there in 1864.  Source for notated version:  Printed sources: Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 571. Gow (Third Collection of Niel Gow's Reels), 1792; p. 26 (3rd ed.).  Recorded sources:

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