Lansdowne

Held in the British Library. Commonplace book containing the notes of a lawyer connected to the Inns of Court. In a set of pages in the centre of the book are four dances, without names.

I've linked a transcript below. There are also transcripts in Dancing in the Inns of Court, James Cunningham, and The Almain in Britain, c.1549–c.1675, Ian Payne.

The dances are unnamed.

The first dance appears to be directly copied from Playford's Hunsdon House, first published in the Dancing Master 4th edition, 1670. The writer doesn't seem to understand the directions, as he transcribes them in the wrong order – This as before is meant to indicate that the initial “grand square” figure is repeated before each figure, but the author transcribes the left column of Playford's instructions followed by the right column! This is what Playford's instructions say, for comparison:

Given the word-for-word correspondance with Playford I'm going to suggest this is at least 1670 in date.

The second dance concords with Spring Garden, also first published in DM 4th Edition.

The third and fourth dances don't have clear concordances.

Also see Christopher Darras'  article on the subject.