This week we thought we would lean into the spirit of Halloween by looking at evidence of witches and witchcraft in Dorset from a selection of records held here at DHC. Witchcraft and Superstition The superstitious belief in witchcraft was a widespread phenomenon throughout Britain, particularly during the height of the witch trails in the… Read more Witchcraft and Witches in Dorset
This past summer Bridport Arts Centre held a season of events titled “Queer in The Countryside”, for which BAC’s Director, Claire Tudge, set out ‘to demonstrate and acknowledge their unique position as a multidisciplinary arts centre to use storytelling to highlight issues and contribute towards importance societal discourse.’ In this blog, artist Paul Sammut talks… Read more Lisome Rum
Everybody loves the fair and we here at Dorset History Centre are no exception so, on an unusually quiet day, Chris decided to have a perusal of our public catalogue and a poke about in our repositories to see if he could find out anything of interest about the many fairs to have graced our… Read more All the Fun of the Fair
A few months ago, we kicked off our postcard blog series with a selection of postcards from Bournemouth. This month, we’re focusing on another of Dorset’s tourist hotspots: Weymouth. Weymouth’s rise as a fashionable seaside resort began in the second half of the eighteenth century, helped by the endorsement of King George III, who visited… Read more The Dorset Postcard Collection – Weymouth
In July we were joined by Caeron and Eve for a four week work experience placement. During their time with us, we asked them both to reflect on some of the interesting things they came across from the archive. Today Caeron explains his favourite items… — My favourite part about work experience was being able… Read more Work Experience 2025: Locked away…
As a new academic year begins, we delve into the archives to share a story of a bad choice for one school in eighteenth-century Christchurch! The Free School, Christchurch In 1772 a Robert Barrett saw an advert in “the Publick Newspapers” for the position of Master at the Free School in Christchurch. Interested parties were… Read more A school scandal!
The Bankes collection is a remarkable assortment of records covering all sorts of time periods and subject matters. There are antiquarian records, there are estate records, there are examples of account books, farm records, or personal papers. The oldest thing in this collection dates from 1249, and the collection runs through until the 1980s. In… Read more Digging Through History
Thanks to generous support from Dorset Archives Trust and a grant from the Friends of the National Libraries, Dorset History Centre (DHC) was recently able to purchase some fascinating records and photographs relating to the naval and maritime history of Portland (reference D-3155). Within the material is a series of photographs, some of them in… Read more Portland – the building of a breakwater
Recently, we have been working on adding our many uncatalogued parish magazines to our online catalogue. Though we still have a long way to go, we thought now would be a great time to highlight what a useful, and often neglected, resource parish magazines are for both family and local history research. What are Parish… Read more How Can Parish Magazines Help with Family and Local History Research?
Between 2015 and 2018 Dorset History Centre undertook the ‘Unlocking the Bankes archive‘ project. During the life of this project, staff and volunteers contributed well over 100 blogs to the project website. By 2024, this project website was no longer functional in the way it originally was, and we made the decision to close the… Read more “One of the most beautiful countries that can be imagined”: Frances Bankes’ trip to the Isle of Wight
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