THE RHYTHMIC sound of Appalachian clogging resounded around the streets of Newton Abbot last Saturday.

Ladies from South Brent-based Shuffle the Deck, Devon’s finest exponents of clog dancing, were delighting all with their fleet footwork below St Leonard’s Tower.

Appalachian clogging has a multi-ethnic origin. 

English, Irish, Scottish and French settlers brought to the New World their own traditions of step dancing, merging these with the rhythms of African-Americans and  Native Americans’ ritual dance steps, forming a percussive style uniquely American called buck dancing or flatfootin

The displays of precision clogging took place on their own portable dance floor - as the sound is so much better on wood rather than paving slabs - with authentic accompanying music provided by their band 44 Gun.