The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society chose one of the hottest days of the year for their Annual Garden Party on Tuesday 23 July. At the preceding AGM, Chairperson Elaine Barratt paid tribute to the indispensable contributions of numerous Society members and volunteers, including retiring Trustee Claire Ryley who would continue to volunteer for both […]
July 2019. Intestinal worms were an unpleasantly common affliction in sixteenth-century England. In his book on horsemanship in 1566 Thomas Blundeville explained that one of the three kinds of worms affecting horses was ‘long and rounde, even lyke to those that children do most commonly voyde’. In June 1580 at Lawshall in Suffolk fourteen-year-old Anne […]
June 2019. Rock samphire is a succulent coastal plant, nutritious to eat but dangerous to harvest. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Edgar and Gloucester look down from a cliff and spot ‘one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade’. John Pantridge was practising that trade at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight on 18 June 1576 at a […]
The 2019 Summer Outing for members of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society took them to two Dorchester Museums, one presently closed for a massive redevelopment and the other recently opened in 2018. The Dorset County Museum received one of the last large Heritage Lottery Fund grants of £11 million. Members were able to view […]
On Monday 03 June the famous Ridley Scott Hovis ad was re-launched on ITV. Both Meridian and BBC South contacted Gold Hill Museum and sent reporters to mark the occasion. Part of the BBC South Today evening bulletin was broadcast live from Gold Hill, with chair of Shaftesbury & District Historical Society Trustees Elaine Barratt […]
Gold Hill Museum volunteers and supporters were prominent among the re-enactors of the Byzant Ceremony during the 2019 Shaftesbury Food Fair. The procession formed up at the Gold Hill Museum stall near The Commons and made its way down Tout Hill to Enmore Green, the location of the springs which once supplied most of the […]
Tudor England was a dangerous place. There were plagues and wars, perilous childbirths and shocking infant mortality. But what risks did people face as they went about their everyday lives? Steven Gunn of Merton College and Tomasz Gromelski of Wolfson College are investigating this problem using evidence from coroners’ reports preserved in the National Archives. […]
Shaftesbury Camera Club return for their fifth Annual Exhibition in the Garden Room at Gold Hill Museum, opening at 1p.m. on Saturday 04 May and running until, and including, Friday 10 May. Entry to the Exhibition is free at any time during the normal opening hours of the Museum (also free to enter), between 10.30a.m. […]
May 2019 marks the centenary of The Sale of Shaftesbury…
Each week during the season (starts Monday 01 April) Gold Hill Museum needs 42 volunteers to meet and greet the visiting public. That’s three pairs of stewards per day each doing a two hour stint. All our regulars, who met this week for two lunchtime social gatherings and briefings, comment on how rewarding it is […]
