Abram is an urban district within Wigan Metropolitan Borough on the Lancashire plain, midway between Liverpool and Manchester in the North West of England. It is a linear village in an agricultural setting which has developed in recent years (on that side of the main road not bounded by the Leeds-Liverpool canal and main London-Scotland railway line) to provide housing, mainly for commuters working in the cities of Manchester and Liverpool. The Abram Morris Dance or Abram Circle Dance as it is more usually (incorrectly) called, is  the only traditional Morris dance to be performed entirely in a circular formation

It is totally different in style from the later dances from Northwest England, which it pre-dates by over 100 years. These later dances from the region are processional in nature and were urban street dances that were often performed in the local carnivals and were therefore quite colourful and noisy, either accompanied by, or competing against, brass bands! 

Although Abram became a mining community in the 19^th century the dance was well established in its agricultural setting long before the pit-shafts were sunk. In fact one of the local mines was named “The Maypole Colliery” after the morris dancers’ maypole which stood nearby and was the scene of a tragic pit explosion in 1908 when 75 men were killed.