Annotation:Quayside (1) (The)

Back to Quayside (1) (The)

---

QUAYSIDE [1], THE. English, Hornpipe. England, Northumberland. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. This passage, from The Land We Live In: A Pictoral and Literary Sketch-Book, vol. 3("Newcastle," 1847, pp. 147-148), perhaps illustrates the association of the hornpipe with the keelmen who lived near the quayside in Newcastle:

Mr. Twiss gives a conversation between Lord Eldon and his niece, Mrs. Foster, in which the keelmen of his early days are mentioned. Mrs. Foster remarked—“I remember, uncle, hearing of Master Jacky being celebrated for the hornpipes he danced at Christmas: there was an old keelman in the hospital at Newcastle, who talked of your hornpipes.” To this Lord Eldon replied, “Oh yes, I danced hornpipes: at Christmas, when my father gave a supper and a dance at Love Lane to all the keelmen in his employ, harry and I always danced hornpipe.” Mrs. Foster adds:--“The supper which, about Christmas, Mr. Scott used to give his keelmen, was what was called a binding supper,--that was, a supper when the terms on which they were to serve for the ensuing year were agreed upon. Patterson, the last surviving keelman in Mr. Scott’s employment, dined in our kitchen every Christmas-day until his death, about ten years ago. He expatiated with great delight upon the splendid hornpipe that Master Jacky regularly danced for their amusement after these suppers.

The keelmen live about Sandgate and Quay-side, and many of them reside at Dunston, two or three miles from Newcastle.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Hall & Stafford (Charlton Memorial Tune Book), 1956; p. 58. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 182.

Recorded sources:

---