Gold Hill Museum re-opens on Saturday 19 March with many new items on display. The main temporary exhibition features a selection of breathtakingly beautiful Ladies’ Fans from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The history of their use is explained, together with their secret language. It could be that Sheena Commons (left) and Margaret Baxter are signalling “Follow me” or “I’d like to make your acquaintance.” Also involved in the preparation of this stunning exhibition were Maureen Bottom, Lesley Frost and Gill Hutchings, who are all delighted that a previously unseen part of the Museum Collection is on public view. An A4 poster “The Language of the Fan” is available in the Museum Shop.

Over 30 Dorset Mayors and their consorts visited Gold Hill Museum on the afternoon of Sunday 21 February. They were the guests of Shaftesbury Mayor and Mayoress Richard and Karen Tippins during their Civic Day, and had previously visited Swan’s Yard, the Arts Centre, Trinity Grounds, and the Heritage Snowdrop Collection at the Abbey Museum. Newly appointed Chairman of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society, David Silverside [centre], was delighted to greet the assembled civic dignitaries, who were also addressed by The S&DHS President Jo Rutter. Jo gratefully acknowledged the part played by the Town Hall in housing the Museum in its early days, before it moved to various premises on Gold Hill.

In conjunction with Shaftesbury Library, Claire Ryley and Ann Symons are running a Reminiscence Afternoon on Tuesday 23 February from 2.30 to 3.30p.m. Participants in this free event at Shaftesbury Library will be able to discover more about life in Shaftesbury and the surrounding villages at the time of the First World War. There will be the opportunity to share family stories and examine objects from Gold Hill Museum’s collections over tea and cake. For further details, please contact Claire and Ann at education@goldhillmuseum.org.uk.

Jane Ellis-Schon brought a tiny sample of the 15,000 objects in Salisbury Museum’s Pitt-Rivers Collection to her compelling and comprehensive February lecture at Gold Hill Museum. In 1880 Augustus Henry Lane-Fox inherited the Pitt-Rivers title and 27,000 acres of Wiltshire estates from his great-uncle. Already a serving soldier in the Grenadier Guards, Pitt-Rivers applied his military surveying skills to recording the largely untouched archaeology of Cranborne Chase, preserved by centuries of hunting rather than farming. When Rushmore House overflowed with artefacts, he built a museum at Farnham; Jane’s photographs showed glass cases from floor to ceiling and serried ranks of ancient animal bones. Pitt-Rivers opened the [Larmer Tree] Pleasure Gardens for the benefit of his estate workers, who were often employed on archaeological digs in the winter months. A lodge was pulled apart in 1889 to confirm its mediaeval origins, and rebuilt as an art gallery named, on no great authority, as King John’s House. Pitt-Rivers pursued a fairly destructive style of archaeology but understood the need for the preservation of historic sites, to which he contributed as the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, appointed in 1882, and kept detailed records and copious specimens. Jane’s aim in the “Finding Pitt-Rivers” Project is to connect the objects with the records, and to build up a searchable on-line database. Shaftesbury & District Historical Society members are promised an intriguing privilege visit in June to see Jane’s curatorial work in the new Wessex Gallery at Salisbury Museum.

On Tuesday 01 March at 2.30p.m. in the Garden Room David Childs will tell the story of the “Heirs to Achilles” in his illustrated account of the ill-starred Allied attempt to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915.

Steve Harris, “Breakfast in Dorset” radio presenter based in Dorchester, is seen here talking to Marjory Kellett in the Gold Hill Museum Library on 27 January. Steve was collecting sound-bites to illustrate the answer to the quiz question: “What connection does Dvorak’s New World Symphony have with the town of Shaftesbury?”  The answer, well known by locals to relate to Shaftesbury’s most famous landmark, is likely to be broadcast on BBC Radio Solent in March.