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 to interact with visitors from all parts of the world. The visitors in turn remark on the warmth and friendliness of the Museum’s welcome. If you enjoy meeting people and sharing your enthusiasm for our district and its story, then please come and join us. There are also vacancies for those who would like to work behind the scenes in Collection, Display or Garden. Full training will be given. Email enquiries@goldhillmuseum.org.uk or phone 01747 852157.

By Friday 01 March Shaftesbury & District Historical Society Trustee Claire Ryley will have contributed to three educational events in ten days. At Gold Hill Museum on Wednesday 20 February, 10a.m. till noon, the education team from Gold Hill and Shaftesbury Abbey Museums will be helping workshop participants make Chinese Dragon Lanterns. On Thursday 21 February 10a.m. till noon it’s a clay workshop making Galanthus dragons, snowdrop tiles and tealight holders. Both workshops cost £3 per head and are suitable for all ages; children must be accompanied by a responsible adult, with free admission for accompanying adults. Tickets in advance please from Bell Street Tourist Information Centre. Click here for details of other 2019 All Age Events.

On Friday 01 March at 7.30p.m. Claire will be giving an illustrated talk on Roman Gardens to members and guests of Shaston Gardening Association at Bell Street United Church Hall. Claire is the author of the splendid Roman Gardens and their Plants and as Education Officer at Fishbourne Roman Palace helped re-create the Roman garden there. Subsequently she appeared on the TV archaeology show Time Team as a Roman gardens consultant. Non-members are welcome on payment of £3 at the door.

Gold Hill Museum’s meeting and venue space is underused and Chairman, Elaine Barratt, is keen to encourage greater use of the charity’s Garden Room.

Now the Museum team is planning a quiz night and supper, to raise the funds needed to make the facility suitable for more Shaftesbury residents. ThisIsAlfred went to visit.

You have to know where you’re heading if you’re looking for the Museum’s Garden Room. You’ll pass down corridors and through three doors to reach the light, airy space at the back of the building. If you don’t know the room by name, it’s the area where the Tibetan Monks displayed their sand Mandala last summer.

“It’s a lovely space with a fabulous view,” said Elaine, as she gestured towards the green slopes outside the large windows. The views extend out past Gold Hill Museum’s tranquil gardens towards Melbury Hill. “We’re very keen for people to use it for events. We’ve got a couple of people booked in for the Fringe,” she said.

Each Garden Room booking helps to fund the town’s much-loved museum, which is staffed entirely by volunteers. But few groups currently book the space. “Julian Richards meets regularly on a Tuesday with his archaeology group. The Civic Society hired it just after Christmas for their AGM. It’s used occasionally, but not enough,” Elaine added.

You might assume that this room is used only in relation to historic or archaeological groups, but Elaine says that anybody can make a booking for public or private events. “We’ve had a christening party here in the past, so any social occasion is fine. We can have 36 sitting at tables, 48 sitting in rows and 60 standing. That’s the official capacity.”

There are facilities on site. “There was only ever room for one toilet but it has disabled access. The kitchen has everything you might need for refreshments. It has got an oven that you can heat things in,” said Elaine.

Previously the Museum has had to decline some potential Garden Room bookings because performers didn’t have insurance in place for their events but Elaine says they have now arranged cover. “We had an issue in the past with our public liability insurance not covering performers during Shaftesbury Fringe. But we’ve addressed that. And so hopefully we’ll get a lot more people using it, because it’s an ideal space for someone who wants to do a poetry reading or sell their book.”

The expanse of glass that gives the room its natural light and its views over the green slopes can make the space a little echoey. So the Museum wants to fit an induction loop, which will help some locals who are hard of hearing. “People with hearing aids do find the acoustics in here quite difficult, apparently. One of our previous stewards wouldn’t come to any social events here because of the acoustics. When there were a lot of people talking he couldn’t hear properly.”

Elaine hasn’t had quotes for the equipment but she’s got a rough idea of cost. “We’ve asked our museums advisor and she knows one that was put into a similar space. That was about £500 pounds,” said Elaine.

Gold Hill Museum is hosting a quiz to raise cash for the hearing loop. “We have a quiz planned on Friday 22nd February. We’re holding the quiz at the Heritage Suites in Bell Street – the Masonic Lodge. It’s 7pm for 7.30pm,” said Elaine. “It’s there because our Garden Room isn’t big enough to have enough people to make a quiz viable.” And of course, not everyone will be able to hear the questions in the Garden Room, as it currently stands.

“It’s going to be a fish and chip quiz,” added Elaine. “It’s £10 and the food is included. We’re asking people to make teams of up to six. But if people can’t do that, then we’ll try and get them together in teams. People do need to book in advance because obviously for catering for fish and chips, we need to know how many to order.”

Even though this is a Gold Hill Museum fundraiser, Elaine says that it won’t be a history quiz! “Definitely not. It’s going to be very much a broad spectrum of questions.” You can book your tickets or book the Garden Room by emailing enquiries@goldhillmuseum.org.uk

Copyright 2018 Keri Jones

David Carter, Trustee of Portland Museum, brings an illustrated talk about the eventful life and times of the founder, benefactor and first curator of Portland Museum, Dr Marie Stopes (1880-1958), to the January meeting of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society. In 1923, in the wake of a protracted and ultimately unsuccessful libel case, Marie Stopes bought the Old Higher Lighthouse on Portland. In 1930 she was instrumental in the opening of Portland Museum and remained a Trustee until shortly before her death. Her ashes were to be scattered off Portland Bill. The young Marie Stopes achieved distinction in the predominantly male world of academia: she was the youngest recipient of a DSc degree from University College London, earned a PhD in botany from the University of Munich, and from 1904 to 1910 was the University of Manchester’s first female academic as a Lecturer in Palaeobotany. In 1913 she could not find a publisher for her book Married Love which offered advice on family planning. When it was eventually published in 1918 with the financial backing of her second husband it was reprinted five times in a year. Henceforward Marie Stopes’s name was to be associated with advocacy of methods of birth control, leading to controversy and conflict with establishment figures.

Click here for Keri Jones’s interview with David Carter about ‘The Dorset Woman Who Changed Opinion on Parenting and Relationships’ at ThisisAlfred.com

This talk is free to S&DHS members while non-members may pay £3 at the door.

Do you have a well within your home or a spring on your land? If you’re prepared to share pictures of your water feature or stories connected to it, you could help Gold Hill Museum prepare their 2019 special exhibition. Janet Swiss is organising a display that will explain how Shaftesbury’s former residents dug down for water. As most locals know, there’s no surface water found on the rocky promontory on which the town lies. “I find it fascinating that Shaftesbury’s water only came from the rain, until recently. In the past, many of the houses had their own wells or reservoirs and I thought that it would be interesting to see where they all were.”

Janet came up with the exhibition idea after a friend discovered a well on his property when he was building a kitchen extension into his garden. “It was a flowerbed that was covered up. He wanted to go out a bit further and there it was.” He’s made his discovery into a feature. “There’s now a glass disc on it so you can look down into the well,” Janet said.
Janet has since spoken with another Shaftesbury resident who was surprised to uncover an underground water storage space. “One man told me that he was drilling a hole through the pavement and found this enormous room, which must have been one of the big reservoirs.”
Janet reckons that there will be wells beneath many properties that were formerly used as pubs. “There were a lot of pubs because we were on a major route from London to the southwest of England. They needed them to make beer, as well as everything else. It would be fascinating to know more about it.”
Janet has identified three frequently occurring styles of well in Shaftesbury. “There are some with springs, which are very low down. Others store water like a reservoir – it is held in by the sponginess of the greensand, which allows the rainwater to soak in. And then there are straight wells that just collect the rainwater,” she said.

Shaftesbury Estate Agent Chris Farrand says that he has listed properties around the town with wells and hidden water features. “We come across them regularly, often in Enmore Green and Motcombe. They are in all sorts of places, like cellars and gardens,” said Chris. “Sometimes people make a feature of them. They can be hidden and you find a hole in the ground with water in the bottom. We have had clients buy properties and they didn’t know they were there.” Chris says a well won’t add value to a property but it will add to the ‘quirkiness’ of a home. And he reckons Janet will have lots of material to work with.

There’s one well that Janet would like to locate more than any other. “I’d like the people who have done the research at the Abbey to say where the Abbey well was. I’d love to know where that is,” she said.
Janet wants well owners to reveal details like how deep their well is, whether they still contain water and how far down the water is. “If you have any information from your household deeds and can provide a picture, that would be wonderful too,” said Janet. She hopes to receive plenty of information by February, so she can plan the display ready for when Gold Hill Museum opens in March for the 2019 season.

Earlier this year, Janet helped to reinstate the Byzant ceremony, where Shaftesbury thanked Enmore Green, down the hill, for offering access to its water. Janet hopes that the spring, at the bottom of Tout Hill, could be renovated in the future. That could provide an additional item of interest for visitors to the town. Janet is also keen to list places where water flows at the base of the hill, where the greenstone switches to clay. The springs are not always in the same place. “They move about a bit,” said Janet. You can contact Janet through enquiries@goldhillmuseum.org.uk.

Copyright 2018 Keri Jones