At Dorset History Centre, we have a team of highly knowledgeable and eager volunteers, all of whom we haven’t seen for some considerable time now! That doesn’t mean that they haven’t been in touch with us though, and one of our keen volunteers has written this blog, exploring how parchment was made… — D-GIM is… Read more The Fabric of Life…
DHC houses the Local Studies Library, a reference library which houses publications about Dorset’s past, and we are always keeping an eye out for new books to add diversity and depth to the collection. This summer we have added “The Gypsy Camp” by Raymond Wills, the local ‘Gypsy Poet’. Ray is an author and poet from… Read more “The Gypsy Camp” by Raymond Wills
Whilst Dorset History Centre is primarily known for its archive of historical documents, we also hold the Local Studies library, packed with books on places, people and subjects relating to Dorset as well as titles by the local authors, such as Thomas Hardy, William Barnes and the Powys family. We even have some sheet music!… Read more Archives A-Z: L is for Local Studies Library
The fourth and final volume of ‘Royal Weymouth’ contains perhaps the most unusual addition of any of the books by Broadley that we have looked at in our blog series – some of Lord Cathcart`s hair, which was in an envelope that had been stuck into this volume. Lord Cathcart was a Scottish general who… Read more Royal Weymouth Volume 4: Horatio and Hair
In recent weeks the Black Lives Matter movement has shone a spotlight on the importance of making sure that history reflects the lives of all people and we have found stories of black people in the records from our archive that may surprise you. It is easy to think that in a predominantly white rural county such as Dorset there are few stories to discover, but we were able to… Read more Black Voices Matter
Talk to any bookbinder or book conservator about their favourite parts of a binding and the likelihood is that endbands will be pretty high up on the list. Found at the top (headband) and bottom (tailband) of the spine, endbands have both structural and decorative features and are extremely enjoyable to make. In Medieval times,… Read more Conservation Tales: The beginnings of the Endband
Business records are those records that are created by a business that have a long-term value to the business itself, its stakeholders and future generations. They can include paper records, electronic records, audio recordings, videos and photographs. Most of the material produced by any organisation is ephemeral and of little use after the function that created it is ended.… Read more Archival Types – Business Records
Wednesday 24th June 2020 is Midsummer’s Day and the Feast of St John the Baptist. It is a celebration that has links to the old summer solstice festivities, although it occurs a few days after the longest day, which usually falls on the 20th or 21st of June. Traditional celebrations for Midsummer began at sunset… Read more A Dorset Midsummer
Wednesday 24th June 2020 is Midsummer’s Day, and we will be posting a blog about the historical significance of this on the day itself. Today, we wanted to look at the historical meaning of the summer solstice, which happened on the 20th June 2020. — Since Neolithic times, when our Dorset predecessors were clearing trees… Read more Dorset’s Summer Solstice
We are sharing a monthly look at the farm diary of John Foss, written from his dairy farm in Kingston Russell in 1851. June 1851 June starts “very cold for the season” with storms and strong winds, but soon warms up to be fine and hot. The farm is continuing to focus on churning and potatoes, and John has started producing… Read more The Diary of John Foss: June 1851
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