On May Day, 1 May, ‘Victory Morris’, Morris dancers from Portsmouth, visited the Museum as part of their annual May Day mystery tour of Hampshire and West Sussex. Before arriving at Tangmere , most of venues during the day had been, not unsurprisingly, hostelries.
Their day had started at dawn (about 5 AM) with dancing on Old Portsmouth’s harbour walls. Breakfast was taken at one of the Pompey pubs and lunch at the Gribble P.H. in Oving, just down the road from the Museum.
Visitors and staff at the Museum were entertained mid afternoon with four traditional Morris dancers on the Museum’s car park. However, dancing is not their only skill as we all found out when the dancers went inside to the Merston Hall. Here they sang some Old English traditional songs finishing with an excellent rendition of ‘Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines’ – a very suitable end to their visit to Tangmere!
