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Hoppy days are here again!

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Editorial team
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Inspired by craft ales and Coldplay, Steve Farrell has brought commercial brewing back to Wimborne after a nearly 80-year dry spell

Steve Farrell, Master Brewer, inside the Eight Arches Brewery
All images: Courtenay Hitchcock

Would you get to 40 and regret not giving it a go?’
This was the catalyst question from Ellie Farrell that inspired her husband, Steve, to move from a homebrewing hobby to starting his own commercial brewery. Forty next year, Steve Farrell needn’t have any regrets. From a small industrial unit in Wimborne, his Eight Arch brewery is a phenomenal success. In just eight years it has racked up a host of industry awards, is sold in shops and pubs across Dorset and runs pop-up tap rooms at festivals and events. Every Friday, its own Tap Room on the riverside industrial estate is the go-to place. Pints are pulled from 3 and by 4.30 there’s barely a vacant beer-barrel seat. Local MP and Eight Arch fan Michael Tomlinson organised the beer to be sold in the Houses of Parliament’s watering holes. Named after the eight arches of Wimborne’s landmark Julian’s Bridge, the company brought brewing back after 78 years.*

image Courtenay Hitchcock

The home-brew escalation
It’s a busy brew day when I interview Steve. Head brewer Mark Wainwright is canning beers on the small production line as KLF tracks boom out. When Steve’s in charge, it’s Coldplay – he’s seen them in concert 15 times!
In his small office, you can’t see his desk for paperwork and to-do lists. His children’s paintings are displayed alongside red-dotted maps of outlets, stretching from Southampton to East Dorset and throughout the Blackmore Vale. Shelves groan under the weight of awards. He’s now a Master Brewer, but he refers to himself as office admin!
‘When I started homebrewing, I got truly bitten by the brewing bug,’ Steve says. ‘I began with starter extract kits – just a plastic fermenting bucket, a tin of malting extract that looks like golden syrup, yeast and water.
‘I’d try out my concoctions on friends, who – through gritted teeth – told me it was good!
‘I did a lot of research, and escalated to homebrewing all-grain. You mash the malt, boil it at the right temperature, add the hops and ferment it. On a very small scale, I was doing in my garage exactly what I do now!’

Behind the Tap Room bar, which started life as a makeshift pallet bar with a few beer taps attached and just 105 pints available


After an apprenticeship in mechanics, Steve worked in his parent’s haulage company. When the business closed, the road ahead for the HGV master technician was clear – to become a Master Brewer.
‘I’d been on BrewLab courses in Sunderland and I volunteered to help at other breweries in Dorset, digging their mash out, seeing how they worked.’
Steve pulled his first pint in 2015 and says the first year was frenetic. He brewed, packed, sold, delivered and ran the Tap Room: ‘We opened the Tap Room with a makeshift pallet bar that had a few beer taps attached – we had 105 pints available and by 6.30pm we’d sold out.
‘I served and Ellie and her mum washed all the glasses by hand in a tiny sink. I was so scared to tell the queue we’d run out of beer, but actually the news was met with huge applause.’
It’s the local support that Steve never forgets. Born and raised in Wimborne, he keeps his business true to its roots.
‘At one point we were exporting to Switzerland, Norway and Italy. We had so many wholesalers and the Tap Room was getting so busy we were overstretched. I pulled back my focus to the local market which had always bought our beer.’

Just some of the industry awards Steve has achieved for Eight Arch Brewing Co

It was a good call. His distribution radius has shrunk but sales have gone up. Alongside head brewer Mark, the Eight Arch family has expanded – now there’s Mike in sales, brewery assistant Joe, Nick and Kat helping run the Tap Room and Archie, the fostered cat who sleeps on the bar and features in their marketing.
The beers are named after different arches – Corbel, Parabolic, Bowstring – along with Steve’s other loves of music and football. Under The Radar was inspired by AFC Bournemouth getting promoted, and of course there’s a beer with a nod to his beloved Coldplay: Square Logic, his bestselling IPA, is a combination of two song titles.
And for his 40th year the company is moving over the road to premises twice the size.
’Perhaps it will be somewhere to have my 40th birthday party!’

Archie, the fostered cat who sleeps on the bar and is ‘even more grumpy than he looks!’

www.8archbrewing.co.uk
Tap Room is open Fridays 3-8pm, with a guest food van.
Unit 3, Stone Lane Industrial Estate, Wimborne, BH21 1HB
Follow them on socials as 8ArchBrewing

  • The last brewery was the Town Brewery, by then known as Ellis and Sons, closed in 1937. It was bought (and swiftly closed) by Hall and Woodhouse.
A typically busy Friday night at the Tap Room

Quick fire question:
Dream Tap Room guest?
George Best – it would be great to have a chat with him. But maybe not a drink! I’m a massive Manchester United fan. And Duncan Edwards. I was born on the same day as the Munich air disaster in which he died, at just 21. I’m convinced he would have been England captain at the ‘66 World Cup.

Events Officer | Mosaic – Supporting Bereaved Children

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Editorial team
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Hours: 37.5 hrs per week (flexible working)

Salary:  £23,400 up to £25,350 per annum

Base:  Milborne St Andrew, Blandford, DT11 0LG

Are you looking to use your experience to help others? We are looking for an enthusiastic and committed person to join the Mosaic team. Events play a huge part in the success of Mosaic’s brand as well as the charities ethos to give an enjoyable and memorable event/activity day for our families and children. You will be a highly motivated individual with excellent people skills and a passion for facilitating and connecting bereaved children and families to experiences that could be new, therapeutic, and fun.

Requirements:

Passionate about working or volunteering within the charity sector.

Excellent (keen eye for detail) at managing, event planning and experiences from conception through to delivery.

Excellent organisational skills and time management.

Excellent knowledge of Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).

Advantageous:

Qualification in experiences programming or event management.

Experience of working with children, families, carers, schools and external event contractors.

Closing date: 17th November 2023

Full job description and application form available from: [email protected] 

www.mosaicfamilysupport.org

Registered Charity: 1158138

Kyiv City Ballet provide an unforgettable experience for North Dorset’s young Ukrainian community

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Editorial team
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Shaftesbury CE Primary School hosted members of the Kyiv City Ballet on 3rd October as the world-renowned international dance company started their whistle-stop tour of North Dorset.
The Ukrainian students from Shaftesbury Primary were joined by their compatriots from Shaftesbury Abbey, St Andrew’s (Yetminster) and St George’s in Bourton to take part in a morning of dance and Ukrainian culture.


The Kyiv City Ballet representatives, including Ivan Kozlov (founder and director), Mykhailo Shcherbakov (rehearsal director) and a selection of dancers, lead a personal and informal session for the Ukrainian children and close friends. The children were shown some of the intricate costumes and shoes of the ballet company, before participating in a workshop where they were taught some of the basic ballet positions and moves.
Afterwards the children were joined by some Ukrainian parents along with Years 4, 5 and 6 from Shaftesbury Primary for an informative and inspirational assembly. Ivan spoke to the children about how the Kyiv City Ballet had left Kyiv the day before the Russian invasion in 2022 to start a three-week tour of France, and how they are effectively still on that tour, having been unable to get home. Their tour soon became known as the Infinity Tour!


Ben Smiley, teacher at Shaftesbury Primary, said, ‘It was our pleasure to host the Kyiv City Ballet. For them to take time out of their busy schedule to spend a day with some of the Ukrainian students in the North Dorset area is a hugely generous gesture. The connection between the Ivan and his team with the children was instant, and it has undoubtedly created a sense of pride in the Ukrainian culture within our refugee children. Thanks go to Ivan, the Kyiv City Ballet and Stuart Twiss of the Shaftesbury Refugee Group for their time and energy in inspiring our children.

sponsored by Wessex Interent

Banana chocolate cake

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Editorial team
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This month’s recipe is nice and easy and lovely and cosy. I am 100 per cent about the cosy right now. It may bring back early lockdown memories – remember when everyone seemed to be making banana bread? But this banana and chocolate cake is so simple to make and so delicious. As autumn draws in it’s perfect to enjoy in your snuggliest jumper with a hot cup of tea.
I personally tend to leave my chocolate in big chunks – I think it works beautifully with the slightly
squidgy texture of all the banana. This cake is also a great one to make with children, the recipe is quite forgiving and they can get stuck in helping break up the banana and chocolate! Heather

Ingredients

  • 115g / 4oz butter
  • 115g / 4oz soft brown sugar
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 3 bananas
  • 200g / 7oz of chocolate
  • 170g / 6oz self raising flour
  • 60ml milk

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to gas 5/160º fan and line a 20cm x 20cm (8” x 8”) tin.
  2. Beat together the butter and sugar well. Add the egg and vanilla and beat again.
  3. Add in the banana by breaking it into smallish pieces using your fingers and stir in.
  4. Add the flour and milk and mix gently.
  5. Finally, add the chocolate once you have broken it into pieces – the chunkier the better!
  6. Spoon the mix into the prepared tin and bake for about 25-30 mins (check after 20 mins) until it’s golden on top and it springs back to the touch in the middle.
  7. Leave to cool in the tin.
Heather Brown is a special officer for the Guild of Food Writers, and has worked in the food industry for 20 years. She is a food writer and photographer, offering one to one help to local businesses for content and websites.

Notes:

  • The large pieces of banana and chocolate will mean that a skewer probably won’t come out clean when it is fully cooked. It will be quite a dense bake but you are looking for the cake not to ‘wobble’ if you gently shake the tin.
  • You can finish this cake with a drizzle of melted chocolate on top if you wish.
  • You can also make this cake in a 2lb loaf tin. I would recommend lowering the oven temperature to gas 4/140º fan and baking for 45+ minutes to make sure its cooked properly all the way through.

Rising NHS waiting list deaths are a grim consequence

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Editorial team
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Labour Pat Osborne
Labour Pat Osborne

In England more than 120,000 people died last year while on an NHS waiting list for treatment – double the number recorded in 2018. It’s a stark reminder of the impacts of long waits for care.
While the additional pressure of Covid and the resulting backlogs will clearly have had an impact on these figures, there’s no dodging the fact that more than 13 years of Tory underinvestment in staff, beds, equipment and the NHS’s crumbling infrastructure has played a huge role in the crisis.
Sceptics will quite rightly claim that the 120,000 figure does not accurately account for variation between NHS trusts. Nor does it link deaths to cause of death, or provide any further details on the person’s age and medical conditions. It doesn’t account for the nuance of each individual case. Indeed, it does very little in itself to illustrate the pain and agony that individuals and their families are experiencing in their final months while waiting for treatment that never comes.
As such, the 120,000 figure merely emphasises the potential scale of avoidable human tragedy when waiting lists balloon to 7.6 million – a figure that indicates that almost one in seven of us is waiting for treatment.
As waiting lists are set to increase further in the coming winter months – potentially reaching the nine million predicted by the Tories’ own ex-health secretary, Sajid Javid – Rishi Sunak’s key election pledge to cut NHS waiting lists lies in shreds.
This is a tragedy of the Prime Minister and his Chancellor’s own making, born of their failure to get to grips with the key issues affecting the NHS, and their disgraceful ideologically-driven refusal to enter into meaningful discussions with the British Medical Association over pay and conditions of those that give us care.

  • Pat Osborne
    North Dorset Labour

Newcomers’ Event returns to Child Okeford

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Editorial team
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been since a Newcomers’ Event has been held in Child Okeford but, on Saturday 9th September, it returned!
There were 20 stands filling the village hall advertising village activities ranging from gardening to Subbuteo, and badminton to amateur dramatics – an impressive range of options, terrific for anyone looking to try something new this autumn.

Child Okeford residents were excited to welcome village newcomers


The event was to welcome new residents to the village, to show off what Child Okeford has to offer and to encourage new membership for the clubs. Despite the name, everyone was welcome at the event – old and new residents alike – and though the event clashed with the Cheese Festival in Sturminster Newton on the same day, plenty of people came along.
The organisers say they won’t leave it so long next time!

Sponsored by Wessex Internet

There’s a good COP in Dorset

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Editorial team
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We certainly live in ‘interesting’ times, and September was no exception. Thankfully there were some positive events in Dorset, of which more in a moment. On the down side, we saw yet more record-breaking weather. Remember that heatwave at the beginning of the month? As I write we see another weekend of unseasonally warm temperatures on the forecast.
In spite of all the warning signs of our changing climate, the government chose this month to begin rowing back on its previous net zero pledges. It even claimed to be fighting against a completely bogus ‘war on motorists’, which looks like a desperate effort to drag itself back up the polls by appealing to the minority of the population who still think global warming is someone else’s problem to deal with.

Dorset goodness
Putting such madness to one side for the moment, happily there were two really positive environmental events here in Dorset. On 9th September a Conference of the Parties (COP) was held in Dorchester’s historic Corn Exchange, making Dorset the first county to hold such an event. Something to be proud of – and let’s hope others will follow us. Three of Dorset’s leading climate and environmental action groups joined forces to organise the event – Zero Carbon Dorset, Dorset Climate Action Network (Dorset CAN) and Sustainable Dorset.
The conference echoed the annual international COPs, where representatives of world governments seek to address the critical issues of climate change and the environment.
The objective was to inform, engage and galvanise Dorset residents into greater action to tackle the issues around climate change and the environment. The day was packed with excellent sessions and the crowded venue buzzed with enthusiastic attendees all day. If you’re sad to have missed it, you can catch up via YouTube here as the live sessions were recorded.
The other inspiring event this month was the ten-day Planet Purbeck Festival from 15th to 24th September.
There was a huge range of activities, too many to list here, so see for yourself on the Planet Purbeck website.
Again, the enthusiasm of presenters and attendees was heartwarming. Everyone was committed to learning from one another and eager to work together to find the solutions we so urgently need.
If only our government was so inclined, instead of focusing on division and delay.

  • Ken Huggins,
    North Dorset Green Party

Unveiling of commemorative board in Gillingham marks the bi-centenary of John Constable’s visits

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Editorial team
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In 1811 Dr John Fisher introduced his nephew, John Fisher, to Constable. The younger Fisher became the artist’s closest friend, providing moral and financial support whenever they were needed and often purchasing works from Constable which he could ill afford.

Gillingham mayor Barry Von Clemens and artist and sculptor Sasha Constable, descendent of John Constable, unveil the new board


In 1819 Fisher became Vicar of Gillingham in Dorset and Constable was invited to stay there in 1820 and again in 1823.
During these visits, he made sketches around the town and completed two known works in oils. The Bridge at Gillingham, of the bridge with the village church beyond, was painted during his second visit and is now housed in the Tate Gallery, London. Parham’s Mill, the second painting, is housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Fisher’s son Osmond later recalled seeing Constable ‘sitting with his easel in the meadow at the right hand corner’.
Gillingham Town Council has commemorated the bicentenary of its connection with John Constable by unveiling a new information board at Gillingham Town Meadow, close to the river and the bridge, which tells the story of the two famous paintings and Constable’s connection with Fisher and the town.

Sponsored by Wessex Internet

North Dorset’s ancient woodlands

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Editorial team
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Reviving the ancient art of coppicing may just be the saving of our national woodland heritage, says DWT’s reserve warden Ben Atkinson

Working on a coppice coupe at Ashley Wood
Image: ©Adam Woolcott

North Dorset is home to ancient broadleaved woodlands which are a testament to the enduring power of nature. Standing tall and proud among the towering canopies of trees are, of course, the impressive English oaks which can be found at many of Dorset Wildlife Trust’s woodland nature reserves including Bracketts Coppice and Hibbitt Woods near Yeovil. They are often the oldest trees in the wood, hundreds of years old and supporting thousands of species.
Ancient woodlands are also home to many of Dorset’s rare species. Their diverse mix of trees, shrubs and other plants support all manner of wildlife. Woodland butterflies like the white admiral and silver-washed fritillary can be seen basking in sheltered sunny areas.
Birdsong often fills the air with resident birds like song thrushes, marsh tits and great spotted woodpeckers joined by summer visitors like chiffchaffs, blackcaps and spotted flycatchers. Roe deer can often be seen as they cross the grassy rides and during the night, hazel dormice climb among the trees and brambles in search of food and nesting material.
Ancient skills
Looking after our woodlands and ensuring wildlife continues to thrive there requires a lot of work from Dorset Wildlife Trust’s wardens. One of the most important ways in which we manage many of our woodland reserves is through coppicing, where a tree is cut down to a stump, encouraging new shoots to grow and ultimately regrowing the tree. It’s an old method of managing a woodland, and something people have been doing for thousands of years. Traditionally, coppicing provided a continuous and sustainable supply of timber and materials, used in a huge range of things from thatched roofs to charcoal making.
It takes advantage of the fact that almost every broadleaved tree native to the UK will regrow from the base if cut down when young, with several stems growing from the original stump. It’s the method by which it is hoped the tree recently felled at Sycamore Gap in Northumberland may yet be preserved.
As the warden responsible for both Ashley Wood near Blandford and Girdlers Coppice at Sturminster Newton, I spend many a winter’s day in these woods coppicing, often with the help of our antastic team of volunteers. Each winter, when the trees are dormant and the birds have finished nesting, we coppice one or two small areas – known as coupes – in each woodland. It is always a popular task with our volunteers. Working in the woods, using age-old techniques to give the woodland a helping hand to provide an ideal place for wildlife … what’s not to like?

A carpet of wildflowers will usually follow when coppicing lets new light and space into an ancient woodland

Breathing life into old wood
Coppicing can have huge benefits for wildlife, with many species responding to the newly-created open areas within a previously-dense and dark wood. It is no coincidence that the decline of many woodland species over the last century has coincided with the decline in coppicing in the UK.
The increase in light and warmth in a newly-coppiced area stimulates new growth.
Come spring, there will be an eruption of bluebells, wood anemones, violets and many other woodland flowers. These valuable nectar sources, along with the warm sheltered conditions, attract insects – which in turn attract birds, reptiles, bats and other small mammals.
So, I urge you to get out there and visit an ancient woodland. Take a moment to listen to the birdsong, take in the earthy scent of damp moss and fallen leaves – and contemplate the centuries that have passed within that wood.
May there be many more to come.

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