Episode 90. Cecil Sharp House
SYNOPSIS
Cecil Sharp House, the first dedicated folk arts centre in the UK, opened in Camden Town, London in 1930. After six years of dedicated fundraising, it was built as a memorial to the folk song and folk dance collector Cecil Sharp following his death in 1924. As well as providing a venue for folk arts performance and training, Cecil Sharp House provided the home for Cecil Sharp’s papers and then developed into the major library related to all aspects of the folk tradition in Britain.
The episode covers the history of research into folk song and dance. Tiffany Hore and Nick Wall explain the emergence of interest amongst antiquarians in the nineteenth century before moving on to the major Edwardian collectors, including the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, after whom the library is now named. After the brief hiatus in the 1930s when folk dance and folk song enthusiasts combined at Cecil Sharp House, there was a revival in interest during and after the Second World War assisted by the British Broadcasting Corporation, the input from political radicals, the publication of the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs and the skiffle boom
The episode concludes with an examination of current trends in twenty-first century folk and what is on offer at Cecil Sharp House.
GUESTS
Tiffany Hore is Library and Archives Director and Nick Wall is Librarian at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library which is based at Cecil Sharp House, the headquarters of the English Folk Song and Dance Society. EFDSS is an organisation that promotes English folk music and folk dance. It was formed in 1932 from the merger of two organisations: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library remains the major centre for research into the history of folk in the UK.
Simon’s interview with Tiffany Hore and Nick Wall was recorded at Cecil Sharp House on 11 September 2026.