New levels of inventiveness were necessary to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day in Lockdown Shaftesbury. At least the Appleby family’s Big Ben was not cocooned in scaffolding. Contemporary Swing music, Churchill’s 3pm speech and an Aunt Sally sideshow contributed to the 1945 atmosphere, while Social Distancing was strictly observed. Social Distancing also figured […]
Mayor and Mayoress Lead the Revels. Shaftesbury was beflagged as never before, and the oldest inhabitants declared that they had never seen such “goings on” in the streets, when the Mayor and Mayoress (Mr and Mrs Ralph Pearson) led off the dancing in the High Street with the “Palais Glide”, to music from loudspeakers. The […]
In September 1918 Britain’s dynamic wartime Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, visited Manchester Town Hall to receive the Freedom of the City. It was the city of his birth, to Welsh parents in 1863. By 1918 he had a formidable list of achievements in an illustrious political career. Old Age Pensions, introduced in 1908; National […]
Rin Tin Tin, the canine superstar of the 1920’s, was a big hit with young Shaftesbury film-goers. A local resident recalls that her father, born in 1918, enjoyed going to the “The Fleapit” to see Rin Tin Tin. This might have been the Picture Palace which, according to Roger Guttridge in Shaftesbury Through Time, closed […]
Shaftesbury’s cinema The Picture Palace opened in the High Street in 1913. The neo-Classical frontage was adjacent to the cycle shop on the site of what is now Bargains. After five grim years of war and a devastating flu pandemic in 1918-19, the cinema offered an escape – to a world of adventure, glamour and […]
Prior to their now postponed talk Claire Ryley and Ann Symons, together with Chris Stupples, discovered more about the family history of Albert Edward Tyler. He was born in Market Drayton, Shropshire, in 1873, one of eight children in the family of Edward and Annie Tyler. His father was a butcher and the family lived […]
In the instalment of Hilary Mantel’s new novel ‘The Mirror and the Light’, read by Anton Lesser on Radio Four on Tuesday 24 March, Thomas Cromwell arrives incognito at Shaftesbury Abbey. (Episode 7: Rejection. Available for one month at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gl8v ) It is the autumn of 1536 and Cromwell is the second most powerful man […]
Gold Hill Museum will not open to the public for the new season at the beginning of April. On Monday 16 March the Secretary of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society emailed members to say that the Trustees had decided to cancel (or perhaps postpone) the ‘Edwardian Shaftesbury’ Tea and Talks event scheduled for 07 […]
For the finale of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society winter season of talks at Gold Hill Museum, members Claire Ryley and Ann Symons explore pre-World War I Shaftesbury as seen through the camera lens of Albert Edward Tyler. In their phenomenally popular Shaftesbury Remembers sessions at Shaftesbury Library, Claire and Ann have been asking […]
Gold Hill and Shaftesbury Abbey Museums offer a joint programme of All Age Events. These are intended to be both educational and fun, and scheduled during school holidays. At Gold Hill Museum on Wednesday 19 February, from 2 till 4 p.m., there will be a Toymakers’ Workshop. The plan is to make toys from recycled […]
