"This budget box set kicks off, like last year's similarly titled: The Rough Guide to English Folk, with Bellowhead's Yarmouth Town, before taking a non-chronological meander through a selection of folk scene stalwarts, current favourites, past masters and venerable forebears ... The sequencing of tracks involving various members of the Waterson:Carthy clan across all three CDs helps to cement the disparate eras together, and throws up a few interesting stylistic juxtapositions along the way ... It's worth noting that there are now two, completely different three-CD Nascente releases using the Beginners Guide To English Folk title, and a web-search is as likely to throw up the 2008 model as this new, Colin Irwin-compiled collection ... Anyone receiving this on Christmas morning and playing through the three discs in order, should be hitting Simon Ritchie's step-dancing melodeon version of Anarchy In The UK at roundabout Queen's speech time, making this a healthy option as wellasexcellent value".
