Boys Of School Hill hornpipe

A Sussex version of The Boys of Blue Hill. Frequently played in an English session I go to in Bristol and also occasionally in Irish sessions by players who also go to English sessions.
The composer is unknown. There is a very similar version on http://members.aol.com/lewesarmsfolk/LFTunes.html

It’s very similiar to the Boys of Bluehill alright.

But sufficiently different to enjoy its own slot.

Where did this version come from ? The second part is very similar to the Boys of Blue hill & the name almost identical. Could it be that somebody picked both the name and the first part up incorrectly at a noisy session ???!!!

Or is this the original English version of the tune?

Slainte, I’ll put your question to one of my English folk music friends who is far more knowledgeable on the subject than I am, but I don’t expect to see him until next week.

I’ve been digging around in Andrew Kuntz’s “the Fiddler’s Companion” website http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/index.html, and there is quite a history of The Boys of Bluehill on page
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/BOY_BOZ.htm.
In summary, it looks like the latter tune had North American antecedents dating back to the early 19c before it appeared in the British Isles. I could find no reference to The Boys of School Hill, though.
BTW, The Fiddler’s Companion website is well worth bookmarking on your browser.

My sources tell me that the name “Boys of School Hill” is somewhat spurious, as is the alleged Sussex origin of the tune. What appears to be nearer the truth is that someone who played the tune at a big session in Sussex got it from an Irish fiddler, but didn’t know the name.
Further investigations are afoot …

Dish Buoys of Schuykill hernpipe goesh reeely well wif anudder toon called Kilty’s Welding…I herd it once that way, played over in Ballygonefishin by a man maimed…named…Peter O…O‘Rower, nah, Peter O’Roar, um, Peter O’Roark…urp, ROARK, ooo, sorry bout that. Seltzer gets the stains out, but not much you ken do for the shtink of it….

Anyway, the maim, um, *name* comes from the Schuykill Ribber near Necrophilia, no, Phillipdelleria, er, Philadelphia over in the States. Dey put buoys in the river to keep the bargers from banging into oil tanks, tanked--I’m tanked--tankers, so this french horn piping two nnnn is about the Schuykill buoys, an no relayshun atall to the other Boys of Blew Mill song….

Or maybe this is the Guardian setting….

Heh, heh, Will. Wonder what Slainte is going to make of that 🙂

Unfortunately I don’t have much wit….

The “Irish” version has one (important) note different in the 3rd and 7th measures of each section.

faaf egfe

Fluters can put a cut or glottal stop between the two “a” notes, whistler can tongue or cut.

Seeting as played at the Golden Guinea pub session, Bristol (UK). (Similar to X:1, but with swing added).

Well this is nice enough. But the version of The Boys of Bluehill that Arcady plays on Many Happy Returns ROCKS!

Northumbrian piper Rob Say calls it ‘The Blokes of Bluehill’.