It’s fair to say I didn’t expect my first three months at Dorset History Centre to turn out quite like this… I’m Owen and I’m the new Collections Archivist at Dorset History Centre. I joined the team at the end of January, having previously worked as a Records Manager at the European Central Bank in… Read more Welcome to DHC!
‘…I have scrawled with my pencil a sort of view…’ D-BKL/H/J/1/1357 — In recent times, and particularly during this period, our means of communication has become largely ephemeral and digital; including text messaging, video and audio. But for centuries it was not so. Until the advent of the telephone in the latter part of the… Read more Archival Types – Letters and Correspondence
We are sharing a monthly look at the farm diary of John Foss, written from his dairy farm in Kingston Russell in 1851. April 1851 The month begins with a standard day for John Foss. On Wednesday 2nd he: Ate breakfast Admired the weather Cut furze and brought some home Changed the cows in Buttermead… Read more The Diary of John Foss: April 1851
The current coronavirus pandemic has brought home to us all how fragile human health can be and also how our lifestyles and assumptions can be completely disrupted by an event of this type. Dorset History Centre holds over 1,000 years of records relating to our county and we thought that it would be appropriate to… Read more The Arrival of the Black Death in Dorset
‘Royal Weymouth’ is a four-volume book that we hold within our collection. Like ‘The Extra Illustrated Edition of Hutchins’, it has been put together by A.M. Broadley, but instead of grangerising one book, these volumes are based around several accounts of the Royal visits to Weymouth by King George III and his family. The first… Read more Royal Weymouth, Volume 1 – Cuttings and Correspondence
We are sharing a monthly look at the farm diary of John Foss, written from his dairy farm in Kingston Russell in 1851. March 1851 In March, the weather starts cold, but soon gives way to rain and mild temperatures, with some stormy days at the end of the month. The farm begins to plant… Read more The Diary of John Foss: March 1851
We are sharing a monthly look at the farm diary of John Foss, written from his dairy farm in Kingston Russell in 1851. February 1851 February starts with “a very rough wet morning new moon & Eclips in the sun”. Whilst there was an eclipse on the 1st Feb 1851, it was in the southern… Read more The Diary of John Foss: February 1851
Following on from our series of blogs on the Extra-illustrated Edition of Rev. John Hutchins’ ‘The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset’ we have been looking in more detail at the author and the troubled history of his book. — John Hutchins was born on 21st September 1698 in Bradford Peverell. He was… Read more Rev. John Hutchins – author of a cursed book?
We regularly take in new accessions, ranging from parish registers to glass plate negatives. Last June, we received an innocuous looking notebook. Whilst not particularly exciting from the exterior, it is in fact a detailed diary, written in 1851 by farmer John Foss. It gives a daily account of life on a dairy farm in… Read more The Diary of John Foss – January 1851
With it being the RSPB’S Big Garden Birdwatch in January, it got us thinking about how we could join in by keeping our eyes peeled for different birds in our archive. While on the lookout we came across a variety of different feathery friends hiding amongst the shelves. These are just some of our favourites.… Read more Dorset History Centre’s Big Archive Birdwatch 2020
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