Annotation:Mount Hills
X:1 T:Mount Hills M:C| L:1/8 S:Playford, English Dancing Master, 11th ed., 1701 K:D d2a2f2f2|efed c2A2|d2a2f2f2|a2 (gf) e4| d2a2f2f2|efed c2A2|d2 (cB) g2 (fe)|c4 d4:| |:c3d e2f2|g2f2d2 (dc)|d2B2g2a2|f4e4| abag f2f2|d2d2B3 f|g2 (fe) (dc)(de)|e4 d4:|]
MOUNT HILLS.' English, Country Dance Tune (2/2 or 4/4 time). D Major (Barnes): G Major (Callaghan). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody was printed in 1701 by London publisher Henry Playford in the 11th edition of the long-running Dancing Master series. It was retained in subsequent editions of the Dancing Master, through the 18th and final edition of 1728 (published at the time by John Young, heir to the Playford publishing concerns).
'Mount Hill(s)' is a common enough place-name: there are several Mount Hills in Britain, including in south Gloucestershire, Scotland, and the Mount Hill in London, the location of a breastworks and battery during the English Civil War. Graham Christian (2015) believes the 'Mount Hills' may refer to the hills that surrounded the fashionable resort of Tunbridge Wells, which consisted of four little villages (according to an 18th century historian named Dugdale), named Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant, Mount Sion and The Wells. The Wells was itself named for seven springs of chalybeate water discovered in the reign of James I. At the time Playford first published the tune Tunbridge featured a number of shops as well as a Great Room and a Long Room for dancing and other events.
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