If you’ve driven through Stalbridge recently, you’ve probably seen the ‘mess’ of the roadside verge. Local Caressence Roden explains what’s going on: 

We are a group of local residents who just love wildflowers and all they bring with them. That includes helping pollinators survive, encouraging birds and wildlife and easing our carbon footprint.

It’s surely a win win situation as we are sowing in public spaces so that everyone can enjoy them. We have a couple of road verges in the town, a central green area and under two of the Stalbridge signs as you drive out of the town. We hope that as our beds become even more successful, we will extend into other verges but for now, we have enough on our plates!

The idea came to us about a year ago and our Town Council decided they liked the idea and gave us some funding to start out. Having never done anything like it before, we knew we would have to learn as we went along….and we have! 

We had some real success with the seeds planted under the road signs and one of the verges and that was because they went into bare soil. The seeds that we sowed onto grass areas, even though we had mowed, scarified and raked, didn’t fair so well. 

So as autumn is the perfect sowing season for wildflower seeds, we hired a turf cutter, got some strong Wild Helpers onboard and got to work. 

We had 9 volunteers turn up on a sunny Saturday morning as once the turf had been cut, it had to be turned over and raked to get rid of the odd large stone and grass tuft. We sowed the seeds and now we hope for a damp autumn with an occasional frost to help them germinate.

The seeds we are using are UK seeds, authentically sourced, so that we can encourage and support the local wildlife. Seeds from abroad are often very pretty and cheaper but we are really trying to care for our own local environment, so UK seeds felt the right way to go.

We love to have other Stalbridge groups onboard with us and have Stalbridge Creative making knitted bees on stilts to hover amongst the wildflowers, The Gugg continues to help us in many ways and before lockdown we had planned to include our primary school in many of the activities. Even so, the children were able to pick up the ingredients needed to make seed bombs, so all wasn’t lost.

Please wish us well for next year….and look out for wildflowers as you drive around Stalbridge next year.

The very first issue of The Blackmore Vale is now published!

You can now access it instantly below:

*exhausted excitement reigns*

We have filled the first three pages with all your COVID Thank You messages – they’re rather wonderful, do take the time to read them all. 

Can we both just thank all of those who have expressed their support and encouragement – this seemed like such a great idea back in August, but it is honestly only the strength of enthusiasm and encouragement (and help) from total strangers that  has ensured it has come to fruition.

BIGGEST thanks must go to Andy Palmer who was an 11th hour wingman of utter magnificence. Further cakes of gratitude must go to the lovely Roger Guttridge, the intimidatingly wonderful Fanny Charles & Gay Pirrie-Weir, and to late-night Andrew Diprose. Not to mention the last-minute whirlwind that was Brigit Strawbridge, or the utterly AMAZING award hatched with Alice Plunkett.

We hope we have kept the spirit of the best of a local newspaper, in this very modern format. Every link is clickable (including telephone numbers if you’re reading on your phone). Do pinch and zoom the pages, and you can flip back and forth as you wish.

We know, the Classifieds section is a little… bijou this month (don’t miss the car page) – but now you know we’re here we expect them to grow to what they once were.

We’d also love a ‘letters’ page, so do go ahead and write to us. Be kind!

Okay. Here we go. *deep breath*.

See what you think of The Blackmore Vale.

Best wishes – and see you next month!

Laura & Courtenay

Local Indie wine merchant Vineyards of Sherborne are celebrating this week – with just cause. The all-female team have not only been ranked in Harper’s Top 50 Indie Wine Merchants, but they’re also, in true Top of the Pops style, Highest New Entry at No.19! 

Wine Merchant Sadie Wilkins explained ‘the indie Harper’s list is a huge deal – it’s an annual award where you are nominated by peers within the wine trade only. You cannot apply to be part of the nominations or pay a fee. 

Which means that those ‘in the know’ have seen something in us that they feel we are doing right; it’s truly a confidence booster.

Hannah opened Vineyards of Sherborne in 2005 and now stocks over 1000 wines, including weird and wonderful grapes and rare, fine wines. You may also have heard of G (their own gin) dubbed ‘Sherborne Gin’ by locals

In usual non-Covid times, the vibrant ‘hybrid shop’ offers an extensive drink-in menu and themed pop-up foodie nights too.

To be recognised by Harper’s this year, during a pandemic, was “…quite frankly mind-blowing”  Sadie exclaims. “the charm of a great indie wine merchant is the personal service and second-to-none knowledge of wine. As cheesy as it sounds, we see ourselves as ‘storytellers of wine’. We obsessively source every product we stock ourselves, and do so in a ‘blind tasting’ fashion in order to remove pre-conceived ideas. The difference between shopping with us and a large supermarket is the dialogue about the bottle and the interesting range that we have on our shelves. That’s what was rather terrifying about heading into lockdown as a business owner. How do we still ‘reach out’ and tell the story behind each bottle… Being an indie allowed us flexibility; we changed our business model to adapt.” 

Harper’s were impressed with their ‘fierce social media campaigns’ and the live virtual tastings on Instagram. 

Sadie explains “The live tastings took on a life of their own! We hosted winemakers from across the world (something that we wouldn’t be able to do in usual times so frequently) and we even made it into national newspapers. Our tastings reached up to 900 viewers.

“We also ran themed wine cases, & mystery selections to our newsletter subscribers, continuing to tell the stories from our shelves. This, combined with a new collection and nationwide delivery service meant that we could still be there for those who needed. 

Harper’s said Vineyards of Sherborne are a ‘small business where you get a lot of bang for your buck.’ 

“We are absolutely delighted. And yes; before you ask, lots of fizz was consumed to celebrate!”

You can order by email 

shop@vineyardsofsherborne.co.uk

Or call (Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sat ) 01935 815544