Three times champ and Lancashire Walloper Robynne wants to bring clog dancing to the masses

Having taught hundreds of dancers from around the world and still made time for work, three-time clog dancing champion Robynne Wood has no plans of slowing down any time soon.

Born in Colne and now a proud member of the Lancashire Wallopers in Leyland, Robynne first put on a pair of wooden shoes at 11 as part of her school’s Morris Society, “where if you were a good child, you got invited to try some clog nonsense”.

Twice a week, she would practice with the Paddy and Panache clog dancing team, before joining the Wallopers, bolstered by the popularity of clog dancing which came with Riverdance.

But having gone on to win the Lancashire and Cheshire Championship three times in a row, she is now looking forward to hosting a competition herself – right in the heart of Clitheroe.

“It’s a real community thing,” Robynne says. “There aren’t a lot of these competitions – there’s only this one, and another in the North East.

“We really want to make it the place where clog dancers from around the country will go. We’ve got 18 teams coming so far, plus a couple of solo dancers, so it’s a lot of cloggers in one place.

“When I ended up taking over the competition, I’d been saying for years that if you wanted people to go to the competition, you had to give the something to come for. That was where Clogfest came from: it used to be in Skipton, and it was a really massive thing. I’m looking forward to it.”

The Lancashire and Cheshire Championship is part of the annual Clitheroe Clogfest, which will feature a host of performances and family events, plus a display from one of the UK’s last remaining clog makers.

Dancers are judged on how well they can perform set routines, on both their left and right feet.

Four judges will rank dancers on style and technique, timing, beats and variety before giving a score out of 100.

The dancers are competing to be named the competition’s champion, with those who win the competition three years in a row given the title permanently.

Robynne herself won in 2019, 2022, and 2023, with a gap due to the Covid-19 pandemic. She is now the tenth in the competition’s history to be named a permanent champion.

“Clog dancing is unique as opposed to things like Morris dancing,” Robynne says. “Morris dancing tends to be place oriented – the dances are named after the places – whereas clog dancing is people oriented. The dances are all named after the people that wrote them.

“The dance that I wrote and won three times with, I then taught it to people. It’s a tradition that’s passed on through people hearing and singing it, sharing the patterns and steps. It’s a real community thing.”

Robynne is hopeful the event will allow more people than ever to appreciate this tiny bit British culture – particularly as, according to her, it wasn’t so long ago that some people kept their hobby secret.

She explained: “Harry, who is also a three-time champion and a judge, when he started clog dancing he said, ‘Don’t you dare tell anybody that I used to wear clogs to go to school’. Because poor people wore clogs. During the big revival in the ‘80s and ‘90s of clog dancing, a lot of people’s parents would have worn clogs, but they were poorer.

“We do get people coming up with that now, but there’s less stigma around it.”

Since joining the Lancashire Wallopers, Robynne has made it her mission to spread her passion for clog dancing to as many people as she can.

Alongside working as a therapist, she teaches would-be cloggers how to master the skill.

Once a year, the Lancashire Wallopers host weekend workshops, where cloggers both new and experienced can join together for expert classes.

And when she offered to teach clog dancing classes online during lockdown, she said found herself “blown away” by the hundreds of people who would join her, many of them from the other side of the world.

“Covid meant that we saw lots of people take clog dancing up, because it’s a solo form of dance,” she says.

“There was a couple of us who were putting classes on and doing it for free, and I put on a six week course that had 150 people turning up each week for it. I taught people that were in Australia, and they made me do it for 18 months!

“A lot of these people had never had anything to do with clog dancing, but it was something that was being put on for free that you could do in your house. All of a sudden, these people all over the world who wouldn’t have had access to being able to learn before, all of a sudden could. And that’s still going on today.”

Robynne says she hopes to see the Clitheroe Clogfest get bigger and bigger each year.

“Having the Clogfest is really, really important because it’s a place where clog dancers can come and mix and socialise. Everybody knows my name because of the level of team that I’m in, but there are little pockets of people that never mix with other clog dancers because they don’t get the opportunity.

“There’s something really magical about it being in front of an audience,” she said. “To see the reactions and to have those situations where you’re feeding off an audience, where they appreciate what you’re doing. And all the different ways that you can make noises with a pair of clogs – that too.”

The Clitheroe Clogfest will be held on September 12 and 13 at Clitheroe Castle.