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North West Morris is one of the remnants of the annual wakes festivals held in Lancashire, Cheshire and surrounding areas. These use to be centred on a cart made of rushes, which were paraded round the streets of the towns and villages drawn by relays of men and dancers.
The rushes were placed between the pews and aisles of the churches at the end of the procession in order to provide a warm flooring and control dust in the ancient churches.
Many of the dancers carried garlands of flowers, which were hung in the church to give colour and perfume. The earliest records or this practice were in 1561.
After the First World War it became difficult to find enough men to form teams. In the absence of men, new teams arose consisting of young boys, girls, women or mixed dancers. The men who had danced before the war taught these new teams and so young boys, girls and women thereby preserved the previously masculine tradition of the North West Morris.
The form of the dances were mainly processional and each individual town or village would have its own particular dance with its own set of figures, steps and music.
Today these dances have been divorced from the actual rush cart festivals and modern teams practise and display dances from different locations.
The difference between Cotswold and North West Morris
Most people are probably more familiar with Cotswold than North West Morris. Cotswold Morris dancers are the men (and sometimes females) who wear bells on their knees, waggle their calves alot and wave handkerchiefs or hit each other with sticks. North West Morris dancers can be distinguished from the Cotswold Morris counterparts by two main criteria: 1) North West Morris dancers wear clogs, Cotswold Morris dancers don't, 2) North West Morris dancers don't tend to hit each other with sticks (but they still wave handkerchiefs about).