Alice Bleathman is a 29 year-old Australian girl who lives just a few yards from the beach on the sun-kissed New South Wales Surf Coast. Despite being a ‘proper Aussie’, Alice has deep family roots and strong heritage links with Dorset. She is a direct descendant of the Dorset transported convict Richard Bleathman. It was… Read more From Dorset Gallows to Van Diemen’s Land
What is World Radio Day? Earlier this month, the 13th February marked ‘World Radio Day’. First designated by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) in 2011, this international day celebrates radio as “one of the most dependable and widely utilized forms of media in the world” (UNESCO). World Radio Day celebrates radio’s ability… Read more World Radio Day: Remembering Dorchester Radio Station
At Dorset History Centre, we were recently donated a collection of photographs taken by a local amateur photographer, Gordon Slade. Gordon Slade recorded images of Dorchester and Dorset between the 1960s and 2000s. He photographed many images of Dorchester, Poundbury, and surrounding areas of Dorset as it changed and developed over the years. This included… Read more Photographs of Dorchester by Gordon Slade
80 years ago, World War Two wasn’t won. Nazi Germany occupied most of Western Europe, and was in full occupation of the French coast, just across the English Channel. British forces had been forced into an ignominious retreat from Dunkirk in N France in 1940. The struggle for aerial superiority had seen British and German… Read more Dorset D-Day: Part 1
Welcome to our latest blog, The Frog Blog, where we are celebrating all things relating to our amphibian friends in Dorset! The idea for this blog actually began with the discovery of a ‘Toad Fair’ that was held in Lydlinch in the mid-19th century, but ‘The Toad Blog’ didn’t have quite the same ring to… Read more The Frog Blog
While it is true that this iconic Christmas carol would begin and end with a partridge in a pear tree, the truth is Dorset possess their own interpretation. The evidence of this fact is backed up in “Dorsetshire Folk-Lore” by John Symonds Udal, on (page 80) where the carol begins and ends with “a sprig… Read more The 12 Days of Dorset Christmas!
Language changes over time. As new words come and go and regional dialects fade from memory, the English we speak today is very different from that spoken 200 years ago. Dorset History Centre holds an 1856 election poster from Bridport written, for political effect, in the Dorset Dialect: The author, Jems Mab, says ‘Ich be… Read more Dabbling in Dorset Dialect
**This blog post was edited on 30 May 2022 to give the answers at the end of the competition. The competition is now closed. Thank-you to everyone who took part!** — Subscribers to our newsletter may recognise the feature ‘where was this photograph taken?‘ through which we have sent snapshots of Dorset to our readers… Read more Where was this photograph taken?
Could you imagine the song of French birds in Cattistock? The estate-name Chantmarle is formed of a surname deriving from a French place-name ‘sing blackbird’. Brog Street in Sleight, Corfe Mullen, was found to be on the line of a Roman road or strǣt – a demonstration that place-names can be significant for archaeology. Cancer… Read more The Survey of English Place-Names: Dorset – congratulations are in order!
What is an Icehouse? Icehouses, also known as ice wells, ice pits or ice mounds, were structures built fully or partially underground for the storage of ice and snow throughout the year, which in turn led to them being used for the preservation of food. In part one of this blog, we looked at how… Read more Dorset Ice Houses (part 2)
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