Barwick Green

---

title: "Barwick Green" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["radio-theme-songs", "the-archers", "light-music-compositions", "1924-compositions"] description: "Theme music to the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barwick_Green" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Theme music to the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Barwick_Maypole.jpg" caption="Barwick Maypole"] ::

"Barwick Green" is the theme music to the long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers. A "maypole dance" from the suite My Native Heath written in 1924 by the Yorkshire composer Arthur Wood, it is named after Barwick-in-Elmet in Yorkshire's West Riding. The recording used between 1950 and the 1990s was played by Sidney Torch and his orchestra. It was produced by George Martin. Sidney Torch recorded a commercial version of "Barwick Green" in the 1950s, but it was not used on The Archers itself.

The familiar opening 7 notes are echoed in the pizzicato in Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony, written in 1934.

The Sunday omnibus broadcast of The Archers starts with a more rustic, accordion-arranged rendition by The Yetties, while BBC Radio 4 Extra's former spinoff, Ambridge Extra, used a version arranged by Bellowhead.

References

References

1. "Feedback".
2. (21 April 2011). "Sidney Torch & Orchestra - Barwick Green (Archers Theme)". BBC.
3. The Yetties. (1997). "Upmarket".
4. Gonsalves, Rebecca. (1 January 2011). "60 things you never knew you wanted to know about The Archers". Independent Print Limited.
5. Heritage, Stuart. (5 April 2011). "TV theme tunes: don't mess with the best". [[The Guardian]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::