St Andrews To Loches

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

St Andrews To Loches (R3x32) 3C triangular set Lewis N Derrick 2023

1-4 Taking nearer hands with partners and using travelling step, all three couples advance to the centre of the triangle and retire
5-8 Taking both hands with partners and using slip step, all three couples advance to the centre of the triangle and retire
9-16 Giving right hands to partners to begin, all three couples dance a grand chain for six bars and then turn partners by the right hand (or elbow) for two bars
17-24 The 1st couple dance figures of eight around the standing couples, 1st man with the 2nd couple, 1st woman with the 3rd couple, to end back in original places (the 1st man dances between the 2nd couple, round the 2nd man, behind the 2nd woman and back to place while 1st woman dances between the 3rd couple, round the 3rd woman, behind the 3rd man and back to place)
25-32 All three couples dance six hands round and back

Repeat twice more with the 2nd and 3rd couples dancing bars 17-24

(Dance crib compiled by the deviser, Lewis N Derrick 2023)

Dance Notes

The set is triangular with the three couples standing at the points, the 1st couple have their backs to the music, the men have their partners on their right.

On bar 2 the dancers may choose to 'high five' one another with their free hands at this point.

On bar 28 instead of closing their heels together the dancers may choose to kick their right leg to the left and give a 'Heeooch!' before dancing back to the right.

On bars 25-32 the 2nd woman around the 1st couple and the 2nd man around the 3rd couple; the 3rd man around the 2nd couple and the 3rd woman around the 1st couple.

Dance Information

This simple ceilidh dance marks the exchanges between the twinned towns of St Andrews, Scotland, and Loches, France.

Suggested tune: Own tune, St Andrews To Loches, Luke Brady.

Devised 2022, first published electronically 2023.

(Dance information from The McGhie Scottish Country Dance Sheets #52, reproduced here with the kind permission of the deviser, Lewis N Derrick)

St Andrews is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, 10 miles (16 kilometres) southeast of Dundee and 30 miles (50 kilometres) northeast of Edinburgh.

The town is home to the University of St Andrews, the third oldest university in the English-speaking world and the oldest in Scotland. It was ranked as the best university in the UK by the 2022 Good University Guide, which is published by The Times and The Sunday Times. According to other rankings, it is ranked as one of the best universities in the United Kingdom.

St Andrews is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle. The settlement grew to the west of St Andrews Cathedral, with the southern side of the Scores to the north and the Kinness Burn to the south. The burgh soon became the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland, a position which was held until the Scottish Reformation. The famous cathedral, the largest in Scotland, now lies in ruins.

Loches is a commune in the Indre-et-Loire department, central France, situated 42 kilometres (26 mi) southeast of Tours by road, on the left bank of the river Indre.

Loches grew up around a monastery founded about 500 by St. Ours and belonged to the Counts of Anjou from 886 until 1205. In the latter year it was seized from King John of England by Philip Augustus, and from the middle of the 13th century until after the time of Charles IX of France the castle was a residence of the kings of France, apart for a brief interlude in 1424 when it was heritably granted to Archibald Douglas, Duke of Touraine.

The town, one of the most picturesque in central France, lies at the foot of the rocky eminence on which stands the Château de Loches, the castle of the Anjou family, surrounded by an outer wall 4 m (13 ft) thick, and consisting of the old collegiate church of St Ours, the royal lodge and the donjon or keep.

University of St Andrews, Scotland

Du Marché-Aux-Fleurs, Loches, France

Published in The McGhie Scottish Country Dance Sheets, Collection 6, reproduced here with the kind permission of the deviser, Lewis N Derrick.
Dance information licensed under this Creative Commons Licence 3.0.
Text from this original St Andrews article on Wikipedia.
Text from this original Loches article on Wikipedia.
Upper image copyright Holger Uwe Schmitt, Creative Commons Licence 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Lower image copyright Aridd, Creative Commons Licence 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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