records

Rural Pursuits – Hunt History of the Blackmore Vale

Dorset History Centre has just acquired a set of records detailing the activities of the Blackmore Vale Hunt (BVH).  Once again, we’re hugely grateful to the Purchase Fund of the Dorset Archives Trust which has supported this auction acquisition.  DHC already held a small quantity of records relating the BVH but this new material (D-3383)… Read more Rural Pursuits – Hunt History of the Blackmore Vale

Dorset Authors Conservation Project

This week marks the end of the Dorset Authors Conservation Project as the final items were placed in bespoke boxes and the written report completed. Generously funded by the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust (NMCT) the Dorset Authors Project aimed to conserve items from three major literary collections: Thomas Hardy, William Barnes and Sylvia Townsend-Warner. These… Read more Dorset Authors Conservation Project

Hotel History – The Kings Arms, Dorchester

Thanks to funding from Dorset Archives Trust, DHC acquired an interesting if rather battered item at auction in November 2023.  This was The Old Kings Arms Hotel, Dorchester, a short historical sketch (D-3353).  Written in 1914 by notable antiquarian Harry Pouncy in large format paper typescript, it provides a fascinating account of one of the… Read more Hotel History – The Kings Arms, Dorchester

Six men, one dog, a Queen, and a horse!

We bet you think the next line would be ‘walks into a bar’, but this is actually the current landscape of statues displayed across Dorchester. Looking at the Southwest, including Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, there are only three full-size statues celebrating named women in a whopping 13,000 square kilometres of the UK. In addition, over… Read more Six men, one dog, a Queen, and a horse!

Icen Cottage – The Porter Family

Welcome to the tenth part of our series exploring the history of Icen Cottage, Fordington. In previous blogs, we have introduced you to the cottage, shown you some of the earliest documents relating to the cottage, discussed some of the problems when trying to identify the people who lived in the cottage, introduced George Cull as one of… Read more Icen Cottage – The Porter Family