On 16 August 1914 Private William Richard Bastable (service no. 7643) disembarked with the 1st Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment at Le Havre. Nine days later he and his comrades, professional soldiers in the British Expeditionary Force, were facing the overwhelming strength of the German army at Mons. Kaiser Wilhelm II is alleged to have […]
Slavery was officially abolished in the British Empire on 01 August 1834. To mark this milestone, John Rutter addressed a public meeting in Shaftesbury Town Hall at 11.00a.m. On Saturday 07 August 2021 at 12.00 noon the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset unveiled a Blue Plaque outside the premises of HSBC to commemorate the life and […]
Angus Campbell, Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Dorset, will unveil a Blue Plaque commemorating the life of John Rutter (1796 -1851) at noon on Saturday 07 August 2021. The Plaque will be mounted on the front wall of No. 2 The Commons, Shaftesbury, where from 1817 John Rutter ran a printing and publishing business, and […]
Volunteers at Shaftesbury’s Gold Hill Museum have been mastering new technology and creating new displays in preparation for the return of visitors on Monday 31 May, and every day thereafter until Sunday 31 October, government regulations permitting. Mr Toad’s Abandoned Caravan, one of the entries for the on-line Amazing Spaces Challenge run during Lockdown, will […]
On 21 May 1471 the last of the Lancastrian kings, Henry VI, was murdered in the Tower of London. If Henry were not the worst, he must have been the unluckiest of English kings. On his watch England lost the Hundred Years’ War with France and was convulsed in the Wars of the Roses. Henry […]
Or so the postmark said on today’s letters. “(Sir) Robert Walpole enters office as first UK Prime Minister 300 years ago 4 April 1721.” Walpole himself would have denied it. He did so explicitly in 1741, when he had held office continuously for 20 years. “I unequivocally deny that I am sole and prime minister.” […]
Bristol-based professional video maker Chris McComish was flying his camera-carrying drone to capture footage of the stunning views from Shaftesbury on a sunny Friday morning. He has been commissioned to make a short promotional video on behalf of Gold Hill Museum. (Now available to view here) The Trustees felt that there couldn’t be a better […]
Dorset Council has recently bought the former St Mary’s School for £10.05 million. Though described as Jacobean in style, Coombe House is not regarded as an historic building. It was built in 1886 (architect E.T. White) about a mile to the east of Shaftesbury, just inside Wiltshire, for Mark Hanbury Beaufoy (1854-1922), a wealthy vinegar […]
On 27 January 1921 Sir Merton Russell-Cotes died. In the course of a long and colourful life he had risen from humble beginnings to possess a fortune (most of which was given away to charitable causes), a flagship Bournemouth hotel, a significant art collection which filled a purpose-built clifftop villa, a knighthood, and a double-barrelled […]
Cafe proprietors – and there are several excellent Shaftesbury venues within a couple of minutes’ walking distance of Gold Hill Museum – need have no fear of added competition. The Tudor Tea Rooms in question are no more than three feet high. They were hand-built by a Dolls’ House enthusiast and fitted with exquisitely detailed […]
