Professor Jeremy Dibble of
Durham University has noted that "While shepherds watched" was "the only Christmas hymn to be approved by the
Church of England in the 18th century and this allowed it to be disseminated across the country with the
Book of Common Prayer." This was because most carols, which had roots in
folk music, were considered too secular and thus not used in church services until the end of the 18th century.
Winchester Old In the
United Kingdom and
Commonwealth countries, the standard hymn tune of "While shepherds watched" is "Winchester Old" (initially simply "Winchester"), originally published in
Este's psalter
The Whole Book of Psalmes from 1592. This tune was, in turn, arranged from chapter VIII of Cambridgeshire composer
Christopher Tye's setting of the
Acts of the Apostles in 1553.
George Kirbye, an
East Anglian
madrigalist about whom little is known, was employed by Este to arrange tunes featured in his
The Whole Book of Psalmes and it is his arrangement of Tye's work that appears in the psalter to accompany
Psalm 84 "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place" with the melody in the tenor.
The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) and the more recent
Glory to God hymnal published in 2013 by the
Presbyterian Church (USA) include both the "Winchester Old" and "Christmas" versions, while the Episcopal
Hymnal 1982 has "Winchester Old" and an alternate tune, "Hampton", composed by McNeil Robinson in 1985.
American composer
Daniel Read published his tune "Sherburne" in 1785, a popular setting that appeared over seventy times in print before 1810 and is still commonly sung by
Sacred Harp singers. It was set to music in 1812 in
Harmonia Sacra. The hymn tune "
Cranbrook" was written in 1805 by
Canterbury shoe-maker
Thomas Clark and named after the local village of
Cranbrook in
Kent. It was originally set to the words 'Grace 'tis a charming sound' written by
Philip Doddridge but is now better known in the
UK as the tune of
On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. In
Cornwall and
South Yorkshire, the carol is popularly sung to "Lyngham", a tune usually associated with "
O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing". Another tune traditionally used for it in Cornwall is "Northrop". In the towns of villages in the
Pennines of
West Yorkshire such as
Todmorden, "Shaw Lane" is used. "Sweet Chiming Bells" is an alternative folk version, repurposing the tune of a different carol, "O'er earthly plains". This tune is commonly sung in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire and also found in North East England. It uses the verses of the standard hymn alongside the
refrain from "O'er earthly plains". ==Textual Variants==