Live band hired for weddings and parties in Wiltshire

I find Wiltshire a mystifying county musically. It is largely a rural county, with lots of small towns like Marlborough, which are really very upmarket, delightful villages and major towns like Swindon. Yet Swindon, set in this lovely setting, seems to be a classical music desert yet ceilidhs and barn dances thrive. Friend of mine who lives in Swindon, and as a classical musician finds that she has to go anywhere but Swindon for her music. Yet the town is not unmusical by any means, because I've personally played at many Scottish Kayleigh's and Irish ceilidhs, English barn dance an American barn dances in and around Swindon, including a very enjoyable wedding reception at the Railway Museum in the town, playing for dancers was surrounded by huge and magnificent steam locomotives. Perhaps it's the rural nature that engenders the laugh of barn dances, though we have had many jazz bands and jazz trios playing the area to. So my apologies to all the classical music lovers in Swindon who would love to hire a string quartet, I'm sure that my biased view is just a matter of chance, and that there are just as many classical music lovers in the area as in any other part of the country.

Wiltshire has a history going back to antiquity. It has the longest earthwork of its kind in the UK, Wansdyke, that stretches for some 50 miles from Wiltshire across Wiltshire's Marlborough Downs and on across northern Somerset to Dundry Hill, south of Bristol; some people claim to have traced its length for another 30 miles. One of the best-preserved sections of Wansdyke is not far from Bath, south of the village of Corston.

The earthwork consists of a single bank with a ditch on the north side. Its exact origin and purpose are uncertain, but it undoubtedly dates from late in the Roman occupation or shortly after. It was probably built as a boundary between the Mercian people and the West Saxons. The name Wansdyke is in fact Saxon in origin—Woden's Dyke, or ditch. (One of the god Woden's functions was to be the god of tribal boundaries.)

On Stantonbury Hill, to the north of Stanton Prior and on the east of the road from Bath to Wells, is Stantonbury Camp, an Iron Age fortification whose north side is a section of Wansdyke.

This means that when our music groups are travelling to weddings or parties to perform, they are travelling through countryside that have features going back to the stone age. It makes the journey more interesting!

Menzies Hotel, Fleming Way, Swindon, , SN1 1TN, Swindon

Dawn's Birthday Ringerike Ceilidh / Barn Dance Band ref: 4003.3

Hilperton Village Hall Whaddon Lane, Hilperton, Wiltshire , BA14 7RN, Wiltshire

Hogmanay Celebrations - Village Hall The FW Ceilidh / Barn Dance Band ref: 4739.1

Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 8BS, Wiltshire

Live music hired for Wedding Ringerike Ceilidh / Barn Dance Band ref: 4003.1

Trowbridge was once a major settlement of Flemish weavers, who brought it great prosperity, and West of England broadcloth is still made here. In The Parade are some magnificent cream-coloured stone houses built by the i8th-century cloth merchants.

Stone barn, Stowford Manor Farm, Wingfield, Wiltshire , BA14 9LH, Wiltshire

40th Birthday The CT Function Band ref: 6080

Southwick Village Hall, Frome Road, Southwick, Wiltshire , BA14 9QN, Wiltshire

60th Birthday party The BA Ceilidh / Barn Dance Band ref: 4417

Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, BA15 1SW, Wiltshire

Christening The Licketysplit American Barn Dance Band ref: 4814.1

Stonehenge and Woodhenge in Wiltshire, along with grave-mounds throughout the area, and Avebury on the Marlborough Downs, are the most important survivals of prehistoric Britain; it is hard to believe that these great bare uplands were once the main inhabited region of southern England and a place of European importance. By contrast, the county town of Salisbury lies among fertile water-meadows, and the sight of its cathedral spire rising above the trees was a compelling subject for John Constable and for hundreds of lesser painters.

Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, BA15 1SW, Wiltshire

60th Birthday Ringerike Ceilidh / Barn Dance Band ref: 4003.2

Hartley Farm, Winsley, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, BA15 2JB, Wiltshire

40th Birthday party The LD Jazz Guitar Duo ref: 6311

Leigh Park Hotel Leigh Road West , Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire , BA15 2RA, Wiltshire

Live music hired for Wedding - Maria and Mitchell The GB Scottish Ceilidh Dance Band ref: 4990

The town of Bradford-on-Avon is quite different in character from any other town in Wiltshire. Almost every route into the town is down a steep incline, and the Bath-stone houses have a unique beauty. The bridge across the Avon has two original medieval arches and a curious domed structure on one side—once a chapel where pilgrims from Malmesbury to Glastonbury

Swindon, Holy, Rood Church, SN1 2LU, Wiltshire

Live music hired for Wedding The Coulan Sona Irish Ceilidh Band ref: 4813.1