On Tuesday 01 November at 2.30p.m. Dr Rodney Atwood will talk at Gold Hill Museum about the life and career of Henry Seymour Rawlinson (1864-1925), created Baron Rawlinson of Trent, Dorset, in 1919. ‘Rawly’ (second from the left, above) was a career professional soldier who in 1914 commanded a significant part of the small British […]
At 7.30p.m. on Tuesday 27 September Dr Amy Frost, (above, centre) Curator of Beckford’s Tower and Museum, will deliver the annual Teulon Porter Memorial Lecture on behalf of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society at the Town Hall. Two hundred years ago, in September 1822, 700 sightseers a day were flocking to Fonthill Abbey, the […]
As many people of the UK, the Commonwealth, and throughout the world mourn the passing of our remarkable Queen Elizabeth II, the Trustees of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society offer sincere condolences to her family. Gold Hill Museum was closed on the day of the State Funeral of her late Majesty.
With the next booster campaign of Covid vaccines due to begin on 05 September, it is perhaps worth revisit-ing the early days of the practice of vaccination to uncover a surprise or two. In 1796 Gloucestershire country doctor Edward Jenner inoculated his gardener’s 9 year-old son with serum taken from cowpox blisters on the hands […]
Artist Bruce Williams has completed several commissions for the Lidl supermarket chain, as he explains in an audio interview with Keri Jones of ThisIsAlfred. At Filton his frieze incorporated two Concordes trailing great vortices. In Shaftesbury he was influenced by the softness of a townscape mellowed by age, and wished to reference the history of […]
The Lionesses’ superb victory in the 2022 Women’s Euro Final at Wembley on 31 July ended a long barren spell for England in international football tournaments. In the lyrics of ‘Three Lions on a Shirt’, written in 1996, Baddiel and Skinner were lamenting the passage of thirty years since England (men) had won the World […]
Most Shaftesbury residents know of the existence of the town’s Blue Plaques, but like other familiar street furniture they tend not to be noticed as we scurry about our everyday business. The most recent was unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset in August 2021, outside the HSBC Bank in The Commons. Eleven were installed […]
Gold Hill Museum was delighted recently to receive from Mrs P.A. Gigg of Gillingham the donation of a Savoy Cinema promotional leaflet dated April 1958. The 382 seat Savoy showed its last film in 1984, and the only trace of its existence is the preservation of the name in the apartment block now occupying the […]
Early, mostly open-top, motor vehicles parked in Shaftesbury’s The Commons. The drivers, in suitably long coats, are perhaps chauffeurs (or cabbies?) waiting for their employers to return from business in town. Or are they just proud owners bursting to pose with their vehicles? Could it be an early rally or organised event, given the presence […]
Visitors from The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society were able to test out the validity of William Beckford’s assertion on their 07 June Summer Outing to Beckford’s Tower and Museum at Lansdown, Bath. From his youth Beckford had been fascinated by towers. Aged 21, he writes of the fictional Caliph Vathek : His pride arrived […]
