Welcome to a world of music, dance and costume! Earthly Delights is both the name of a wonderful band and the banner under which a cluster of related passions are exercised.

As a band Earthly Delights might be anything from a wandering trio to a full-on five-piece, and might be caught doing anything from garden weddings to grand concerts, playing anything from pavans to tangos and leading anything from a simple 17th century country dance to a snazzy 19th century couples dance.

As a banner, Earthly Delights covers everything from tutoring dance, putting on balls to producing CDs, publishing dance & tune books, making fine historical costumes and as the Earthly Delights Historic Dance Academy is the home of the Bordonian Heritage Dancers. Besides creation and performance, however, Earthly Delights is also about sharing - and hence our intention to develop this web-site into as much of a public resource as possible.

This site has been created by and is maintained by John and Aylwen Garden. John is the band leader, tune & dance writer, book & CD producer, and dance researcher and teacher. Aylwen is the home office manager, event organiser, teaching assistant, costume maker and computer wiz. They met dancing in 1989 and have shared a passion for social dance (and each other) ever since. They have 4 children (Amy, Ashby, Aelfric and Alcuin) and a pretty home, studio and cottage garden in a leafy lakeside suburb of Canberra, the small but beautiful capital of Australia.

We hope you enjoy exploring the world of Earthly Delights and have time to delve into the many corners of this site. It is best to always go to the main chapter page for an introduction and explanation before going to the subsiduary pages, but for those who like an overview of the whole site, there is a complete site map .

We hope that you find our offerings of interest and that you can catch up with us one day - perhaps by coming to one of our up-coming events, by booking the band for your own event, or by ordering a CD set, book or a dance dress, visiting "The Garden Cottage" when it opens twice a year with the Australian Open Garden Scheme, or perhaps by simply emailing us to comment on something here presented. We'd love hear from you.