Dorset Meat Boxes

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18 August 2021

Where to find the best meat boxes in the Blackmore Vale

It’s barbecue season (come on sunshine!) and time for entertaining family and friends.

Or, you may just be looking at restocking your freezer. There are some great places to find locally sourced quality meat boxes in the Blackmore Vale with most offering a home delivery service. Here’s our round up of some of the best meat boxes avauilable in the area: all deliver to your door.

Happy Meat Company

Marnhull-based The Happy Meat Company is family-run and has a monthly meat box service. With their own Tamworth pigs & Dexter cows they offer a selection of free range meats in each box, ideal for families or stocking the freezer. They can also adapt to suit specific dietary needs. Do check out the Facebook page for videos of the delightful animals on the farm.

The Story Pig

With their own Tamworth pigs, The Story Pig at Sandford Orcas has a good range of free range pork meat boxes. There’s a selection ranging from a barbecue box to a Quarter Tamworth but if you can’t find exactly what you need, give them a call and they will make up a bespoke one to suit your requirements. They deliver, but I recommend collecting your box so you can enjoy a coffee and the views from their new cafe at Lavender Keeper’s Farm and meet the pigs!

The Dorset Meat Company

Meat boxes from The Dorset Meat Company featured in The Independent recently as among the best in the UK. The company is owned by Jane and Nick Somper and based in Sutton Waldron. All the meat is from Dorset or Wiltshire grass fed animals and you can select from a wide range of box types and sizes or build your own. Choose from the steak boxes or a selection designed to fill the freezer- and it gets delivered to your door. There’s a wide range of meat from fresh venison to goat, lamb and more.

The Real Cure

Based near Shaftesbury, The Real Cure make their multi-award winning range of cured meats using wild deer for venison, free range British pigs and grass fed Aberdeen Angus beef from Jurassic Coast Farm in Dorset to produce their Bresaola.

Their salami, chorizo and air dried hams are made using traditional artisan processes of smoking, curing and air drying; the charcuterie meat boxes are great for entertaining or gifts.

Kimbers Farm Shop

Kimbers are a regular feature at Shaftesbury Farmers Market but you can also get meat boxes delivered. The farm at Charlton Musgrove has been in the same family for over 300 years and their Aberdeen Angus beef is first class. Meat boxes range from a Weekend box to a Gourmet Barbecue selection. They will also fix up a bespoke order if you can’t quite find what you need.

We’re fortunate to have a wonderful selection of high quality meat boxes across the Blackmore Vale – do also ask at your local independent butchers, many source their meat locally, and will offer meat packs. The award winning T Buttling Butchers at Ludwell, for example (featured here), have recently started selling summer barbecue boxes.

By: Rachael Rowe

New Living Legacy Fund will help grass roots groups support their communities

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Editorial team

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18 August 2021

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A NEW fund to help grass roots groups tackling poverty and isolation to improve health and wellbeing is being launched by Dorset Community Foundation and BCP Council.

The Living Legacy Fund is targeting the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area and has been boosted with a £50,000 injection from the council. The fund, which is now open for grant applications, aims to fund services and activities that bring people together to support one another, provide healthy social activities, support personal aspirations and skills and promote volunteering opportunities where possible.

Community foundation director Grant Robson said: “There couldn’t be a better time to launch a fund like this, with voluntary groups struggling after 18 months of increased demand and lost fundraising opportunities because of Covid.

“We want this fund to be a catalyst to rebuilding communities and giving groups the resource and certainty to meet the needs on their doorstep. We are very thankful for the support from BCP Council, which has been incredibly supportive of what we have been trying to do over the last year or so.”

Cllr Jane Kelly, BCP Council’s lead member for Community Engagement, said: “I am delighted and really excited that BCP Council are working with DCF to launch this fund, it is a fantastic opportunity for community groups to receive some valuable resource to continue or expand their work.

“The council is dedicated and passionate about helping our communities to flourish when they have had such a difficult time. Demand is high on services to help those who are in need, many people are facing social and financial challenges but we know that there are many fantastic people out there who can and will want to take advantage of this opportunity to start or continue community-based projects.

She said the community foundation was an obvious choice for the council when looking to invest money into the voluntary sector. “I have worked with the community foundation several times over the last few years,” she said.

“It is a well-established and very trusted name in the voluntary sector and that really matters. It has a fantastic network and the aims of the Living Legacy Fund reflects our corporate priorities, which is all about recognising the strengths within our communities, building on those and keeping residents at the heart of everything we do.”

Last year BCP Council donated £80,000 to the community foundation’s Dorset Coronavirus Community Fund. It made 13 grants and benefitted more than 10,000 people.

Mr Robson said he is expecting other people and organisations and corporate partners to support the fund. “I know there are many people in Dorset who share BCP Council’s belief in building and growing communities through investment in the voluntary sector,” he said.

“I firmly believe this fund will become an important means of support for grass roots groups in the area for many years to come.”

The fund will award grants of up to £5,000 and can cover running costs, staff and volunteer pay and expenses, capital expenditure such as IT or sports equipment or venue hire.

Organisations which apply must work in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and priority for funding will be given to those based in the area.

The funded activities must start within two months of funding and groups have up to 12 months to spend the grant. Applications do not need to be for new services, they can be for the continuation or expansion of existing services to meet changing needs or increasing demand.

To apply for a grant, find out how to support the Living Legacy Fund or learn more about the work of the Community foundation go to dorsetcommunityfoundation.org.

Sponsored by Ward Goodman

Summer together

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18 August 2021

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What does a Summer garden mean to you? Is it about just seeing the fruits of your labour? Vibrant flowers, beautiful smelling roses, and lush shrubbery, all coming to life and filling the gaps from Winter and those seeds you planted in previous months? Is it about showing this off and sharing your photos on social media? Do you enter competitions? Maybe you’re planting in memory of a loved one. Or is it about creating a welcoming space for friends and family – or a mix of all of the above. Summer in our gardens really does feel like the peak of the year and we at Thorngrove understand the importance of this. It goes beyond a nice bit of summer bedding, or a lily on our kitchen window. There’s meaning, and purpose to the effort we make, with this time of year feeling like the time we get to breathe it all in, and reflect.

Whether our space is a few acres, or a few pots on a balcony, nobody’s reason for planting is less important than anyone else’s. Our subjective experiences with plants, and the different reasons we all have for planting something are what make us interesting. One of the best parts about working at Thorngrove is hearing those stories. It’s seeing the smiles on faces when we’re told about plants flowering each year, and how even the small potted plant brings life to a corner of their home. We hear this during Summer more than any other time of the year and there’s a huge sense of pride that we take in knowing we serve such a diverse group of people who look to us not only for advice and gratitude, but as a place they can express their own sense of pride when they’ve seen success from their own gardening.

Gardening is a universal language, and one of the many things that can bring people together in spite of the divineness we can often see in the world. Our humble approach at bringing people some little bit of happiness, and as a place to share their thoughts is something we take much value from, and with some Summer still left to go, we really would love to hear more from you all. We look forward to seeing you at Thorngrove soon.

We would also like to wish the Blackmore Vale a Happy Birthday, and express our own gratitude towards the staff, and all readers for continuing to support us, and this joint effort in producing a marvellous community magazine. Here’s to more years ahead!

By: Kelsi Dean Buck

Thorngrove Garden Centre

Voice of the Books | August 2021

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Editorial team

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18 August 2021

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Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
The Clash were never known for prophetic travel advice. But our Green, Amber and Red list choices have never been so confusing. Still whether you’re passing time at an airport, on a Cornish beach or at home in the garden we have a selection of handpicked Summer Reads all £2 off to help you relax and lose yourself in a good book. Wayne

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce – £8.99

In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search
for a beetle that may or may not exist. Enid Pretty, in her unlikely pink travel suit, is not the companion Margery had in mind. And yet together they will be drawn into an adventure that will exceed every expectation.

The Moth and the Mountain by Ed Caesar – 10.99

The untold story of Britain’s most mysterious mountaineering legend – Maurice Wilson – and his
heroic attempt to climb Everest. Alone. In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Everest, Maurice Wilson conceived his own plan: he would fly a Gipsy Moth aeroplane from England to Everest, crash land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit. Wilson didn’t know how to climb. He barely knew how to fly. But he had pluck, daring and a vision.

Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty £9.99

Evocative, raw and beautifully written, this very special book vividly explores the natural world from the perspective of an autistic teenager juggling homework, exams and friendships alongside his life as a conservationist and environmental activist. With a sense of awe and wonder, Dara describes in meticulous detail, encounters in his garden and the wild. The power and warmth of his words also draw an affectionate and moving portrait of a close-knit family making their way in the world.

Humankind by Rutger Bregman £9.99

Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfish, governed by self-interest. ‘Humankind’ makes a new argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to assume that people are good. By thinking the worst of others, we bring out the worst in our politics and economics too. In this major book, Rutger Bregman takes some of the world’s most famous studies and events and reframes them, providing a new perspective on the last 200,000 years of human history.

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante £8.99

Giovanna’s pretty face has changed: it’s turning into the face of an ugly, spiteful adolescent. But is she seeing things as they really are? Where must she look to find her true reflection and a life she can claim as her own? Giovanna’s search leads her to two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. Adrift, she vacillates between these two cities, falling into one then climbing back to the other.

Pepper, is he worth the salt?

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Editorial team

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17 August 2021

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What’s your favourite brand promise? ’No tears’, ‘melts in your mouth, not in your hand’ and ‘gives you wings’ are pretty synonymous with some of the biggest companies across the world due to their exceptional marketing campaigns. What most people don’t know is that the single greatest marketing campaign has been sold to a proportion of farmers across the globe and that is that “alpacas keep foxes away”.

I do not know which creative salesman concocted this notion, but they frankly are a genius. What do you do once you’ve sold all the ice to the Eskimos? You flog big sheep with gangly legs to farmers – obviously!

Honestly, I really don’t mean to defame the whole alpaca population, but I have an adverse relationship with Pepper our farm walking waste of space. We seemingly have a constant issue with foxes attacking our flock of hens at Westleaze Farm and I really think Pepper ought to care a little more.

When we do catch a glimpse of the local fox circling round the range looking for his next meal, Pepper is too busy gazing over the fence line bleating at the cows and heifers. Why does he love a cow? I have no idea, but he seems pretty capable at chasing off Bill, our pedigree bull, weighing in at nearly a tonne.

Realistically, we only have ourselves to blame. When Pepper first came to the farm, he had a partner in crime, called salt (no prizes for guessing that!). After Salt’s death a few years later we allowed the big brown ball to mingle with the cattle… a big mistake! Now, he’s got an issue that needs counselling – he looks like a uni student trawling around a nightclub at 3am.

Pepper just one of the herd – Image Andew Livingston

Despite all of this, Pepper’s worst trait is that he is pure evil. Despite his gammy green teeth, he does look quite cute from afar, but he’s really like your old Aunt Belinda, enticing you over with her Werther’s Originals, so she can smack you with a spoon as soon as you are close enough!

Every summer we have the dreaded process of shearing. It’s not worth paying someone to shear one alpaca so we opt to do him ourselves… It is a violent and brutal affair. One visit from a vet and they would probably advise sedating him to do it. Like a drunk hovering around the bar at a Wetherspoons, you get too close and you are going to get covered in spit!

We only do it so he is cooler in the summer and so he’s got his best hairdo to woo the grazing girls out across the Downs, but he doesn’t half scream and spit throughout; technically it’s incorrect to call it spit cause it is actually vomit – but I try not to think too much about that.

Recently, I have heard rumours that it’s actually burglars and not foxes that the alpaca keeps away. So, if anyone wants a little more protection around their house, I know of a particularly violent alpaca going FOR FREE to absolutely anyone who will take him.

By: Andrew Livingston

Kingston Maurward Equestrian Seeking Student Horses

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Editorial team

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17 August 2021

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Kingston Maurward College is a BHS Centre offering full-time equine courses at Level 2 and Level 3 starting each September and apprenticeships which start throughout the year. All students do work experience with professional employers and many ex-students return to pass on their experiences to the next generation of students.

First class facilities include international sized indoor arena with top-of-the-range gel track surface, floodlit outdoor arena, solarium, cross country course, and well-schooled horses and ponies.

The Kingston Maurward College Equestrian team are looking for high quality ‘all-rounder’ horses between 15h and 17h who are skilled on the flat and over fences. A variety of livery and long-term loan options are available to owners, with horses working a maximum of 1 -2 hours per day from Monday to Friday; all horses are ridden by students under the expert guidance of College coaches. Horses benefit from daily turnout (weather permitting) and regular check-ups with a local saddler and bodywork practitioner.

Kingston Maurward is a show venue with competition-sized indoor and outdoor arenas – the centre welcomes international riders for teaching clinics and run weekly shows throughout the year; horse owners would benefit from a 20% discount of all show entries. The stunning 750 acre estate has easy access to beautiful walks; whether on campus, or the nearby Thorncombe Woods, Puddletown Forest and beyond.

For more information, please contact the Kingston Maurward Equine Team on 01305 215165 or email: [email protected]

Handley’s Blackest Day | Looking Back

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17 August 2021

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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 wheelwright’s yard near the church spread to much of the village, destroying 49 houses and making 200 people homeless.

Damage was estimated at £10,000.

The wheelwright, who was clamping red hot iron rims on to huge wagon wheels, failed to spot that sparks were being carried away on the strong north-east wind.

‘Some of the burning material was carried by the wind on to some thatched cottages, and burning thatch from those was carried to others, and so on,’ recalled Helen Adams in an article published in 1972, when she was Handley’s oldest native inhabitant.

Handley’s main street after the 1892 fire

‘There had been a dry spell and there was a shortage of water, added to which the wooden well-heads were burnt so that the water in the wells could not be reached.’

The thatch was tinder dry and soon most of the village was on fire.

Most of the menfolk were away in the fields. Those that were left – tradesmen, old men, the parson and the doctor, along with women and children – battled against the flames and tried to rescue possessions.

But without water or proper fire appliances, the task was hopeless.

‘The fire, aided by the wind, seemed to be possessed with demonic cunning, sparing one part to descend upon another and then returning to devour what it had missed,’ wrote the Rev A Turing Bruce in an account of the disaster published 90 years ago.

‘It even pounced down upon the piles of household stuff to destroy them too.’

Among the properties consumed was a general store with large stocks of oil and candles.

Soon the whole village was cloaked in a vast cloud of dense, oily smoke.

One man was seen rushing out of a shed with his arms full of burning hens.

A small boy, told to help save his family’s possessions, emerged clutching his bread and cheese lunch, which he carefully buried in the garden.

The landlord of the Roebuck Inn is said to have saved his pub by offering free beer to everyone who helped him.

The Bishop of Salisbury sent a former Handley curate on a mercy mission to his former parish.

The envoy trudged sympathetically through the ruins, chatting to anyone he met, including an elderly woman, who gave him a graphic account of the fire.

When asked later about his response to the tragedy, the woman sniffed contemptuously.

‘The pa’s’n?’ she said. ‘He be no sense! What do ’ee think his text were on Sunday?’

In a rich Dorset accent, she proceeded to quote the text: ‘We went drew vire and water, but Thou hast brought us unto a wealthy place.’

Handley High Street in the early 1900s after rebuilding. Picture from the Barry Cuff collection

‘Tis true there was fire enough but there weren’t no water to put it out. And I ask you, sir,’ said the old lady gesturing towards the smouldering ruins, ‘would ’ee call this a wealthy place?’

After the fire some families lived in army tents or shepherds’ huts until new houses could be built.

The disaster aroused great public sympathy and clothing and other gifts poured in.

In neighbouring villages, it was reckoned that you could tell a Handley man because he wore two or three waistcoats.

A public appeal was launched, attracting donations from far and wide.

‘So much was collected that when all claims had been met at least £1,000 was left over,’ wrote the Rev Bruce.

‘Unfortunately, so much squabbling arose about the further spending of this big balance that it was put into chancery where it has remained ever since.’

By: Roger Guttridge

Fontmell Magna’s Gossips Tree | Then and Now

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Editorial team

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17 August 2021

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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 appropriate.

The present-day tree on Fontmell Magna’s mini village green is a lime but its predecessor was an elm which fell victim to Dutch elm disease in the 1970s.

The Gossips’ Tree c1900. Picture from the Barry Cuff collection

For much of its history the old elm was equipped with seats to help villagers catch up on the gossip.

As Sir Frederick Treves put it in his Highways and Byways of Dorset, first published in 1906, ‘In the centre of the village is a very ancient tree with seats around it, where the gossips of the place congregate to mumble over flocks and herds, and the affairs of pigs.’

Exactly how old the elm was is debatable.

One modern source suggests that it was planted on the site of a market cross in the 18th century.

But in his book The Old Stone Crosses of Dorset, also published in 1906, Alfred Pope speaks of a handful of elderly villagers who could remember the cross even then.

Joseph Pennell’s 1906 sketch of the tree, drawn for Sir Frederick Treves’s Highways and Byways of Dorset

This suggests it was still there a decade or two into the 19th century.

‘It stood in the centre of the village, and is said by the few old people who remember it, to have consisted of a “broken pillar” standing on four steps, which were about three years square at the base,’ wrote Pope.

‘Near it stood the village stocks and the Maypole.’

The ancient appearance of the elm in early 19th century pictures suggests that tree and the cross must have stood side by side at one tjime.

The Maypole survived until the 1930s and can be seen in the foreground of the early 1900s photograph.

By the 1860s the ‘once venerable cross’ had become so dilapidated that the parish authorities decided to remove it ‘as doing no credit to so respectable a village’.

The Gossips Tree today with Brookhouse in the background

Some of the stones survive in private gardens.

The lime was planted in 1977, the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

The thatched cottages in the background are now one dwelling, Brookhouse.

Across the road (behind camera) is a cottage called Gossips Tree.

By: Roger Guttridge

Dorset in the pandemic

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Editorial team

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17 August 2021

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Dorset Community Foundation have been providing support and grants to grass roots groups throughout Dorset during the pandemic. They have released a report into their response to the coronavirus crisis. The report opens with a summary from Jeremy Mills, Chair of Dorset Community Foundation.

A snapshot of the response from Dorset Community Foundation

These last 12 months have, without doubt, been a time of uncertainty, anxiety, sadness and disruption never seen on such a scale in this country outside of wartime.

However they have also brought out the very best in us as a people and in Dorset we have seen charities and voluntary groups step up despite losing staff and revenue, people who would never have imagined themselves volunteering coming forward to help their communities and new groups materialising to meet the need on their doorstep.

I am proud that Dorset Community Foundation has stood squarely at the forefront of this effort. It was impressive to see not just the extent of the response from the voluntary sector but the speed at which it happened. The Dorset Coronavirus Community Fund was launched in March 2020 just as the pandemic took its grip and ever since, it has provided the essential funds the groups asked for – at the pace they needed them.

For the past 21 years Dorset Community Foundation has shown that it is highly adept at empowering the grass roots groups who do so much for this county. In a typical year 70 per cent of the groups it funds have an income of less than £100,000 and 55 per cent under £50,000. So it was no surprise to see the bulk of the more than £1 million it has allocated over four phases going to these smaller groups, who have been magnificent. We have been able to look at the impact of phase one and we know that almost 45,000 people have benefitted from the first £500,000 of grant awards.

This represents a phenomenal effort from our small staff of just four, as well as its trustees and supporters, who have worked tirelessly to streamline processes to assess and approve applications quickly. When we eventually look back at this tumultuous time, we will remember the heroism and dedication of our frontline workers who stood firm and steadfast in the teeth of this crisis. The voluntary sector deserves to be heralded alongside them.

You can read the full report on the Dorset Community Foundation website at https://www.dorsetcommunityfoundation.org/about/reports-and-publications/

Sponsored by Ward Goodman