William Kimber

William Kimber was an Oxford morris dancer and musician who became something of a legend in early twentieth-century folk revival circles. If you're staying at one of the holiday parks near Oxford - Cedar Hollow or Green Acres are closest - you might pass through without knowing quite what you're looking at, which is rather the point. There's no grand monument here, no gift shop or visitor centre. Instead, Kimber represents a whole forgotten world of working-class English dance traditions that nearly vanished entirely.

He led the Headington Quarry Morris Dancers, a side that Cecil Sharp - the great folk music collector - considered among the finest exponents of the craft. Sharp visited in 1906 and essentially saved their repertoire from obscurity, recording dances that might otherwise have disappeared when the quarry closed and the dancers scattered. Kimber himself lived modestly in Headington, east of Oxford town centre, teaching the dances and keeping them alive through two world wars when such things seemed quaint and irrelevant.

This is really one for people with a genuine interest in English folk traditions rather than casual tourists. You won't spend hours here. The appeal lies in understanding how ordinary working men in a Oxfordshire village became custodians of centuries-old culture. Visit during Morris season - typically May through September - when local sides still dance publicly around Oxford, and you'll see Kimber's legacy alive on the street. It's a different sort of history: not grand, but properly rooted.