Category: Local History

Handley’s Blackest Day | Looking Back

May 20, 1892, was the blackest of days in the annals of Sixpenny Handley. In a matter of hours, a fire that started in a...

Fontmell Magna’s Gossips Tree | Then and Now

Fontmell Magna’s Gossips’ Tree It’s sometimes known as the Cross Tree but a more evocative name is the Gossips’ Tree – and it’s just as...

A Garden Shed’s Unique Place in History | Looking Back

It’s home to wheelbarrows and gardening tools today but this glorified garden shed in the grounds of Manston House also holds a unique place...

Where Nuns Daily Trod | Then and Now

A 1930s woodcut by Shaftesbury’s High House Press features the L-shaped thatched cottages that formerly occupied the end of Laundry Lane. The cottages probably stood...

Hill View Dairies | Then & Now

The clue is in the street name but ‘Old Dairy’ appears to be the only on-site reminder of a corner of Okeford Fitzpaine that...

The grocer’s boy who won the VC | Looking Back

Only 1,358 Victoria Crosses have been awarded since the first one in 1857 and few have deserved it more than World War One hero...

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Stable lunch

Weird weather means the mares are still out, and the Glanvilles Stud team had to magic up a pop-up restaurant, says Lucy Procter The warm...

A cruel father found guilty in 1905

Southern Times and Dorset County Herald - Saturday 07January 1905Charles Stay, a tramp, was charged with wilfully exposing three children, Charles, 16, Elizabeth, 11...

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