The Blandford Express

Born in 1811, Frances Jeans was one of Australia’s earliest teachers. In the villages Durweston and Stourpaine there were several Jeans families. At this time, Stourpaine had a particularly unsavoury reputation for unsanitary living conditions and extreme poverty. The Hampshire Telegraph was to write in 1840 of the village: ‘The first feature which attracts the attention of a stranger entering the village is the total want of cleanliness which pervades it. A stream, composed of the matter which constantly escapes from the pigsties and other receptacles of filth, meanders down each street, being here and there collected into standing pools, which lie festering and rotting in the sun so as to create wonder the place is not the continual abode of pestilence – indeed the most malignant fevers have ravaged here at times. It may be sufficient to add for the present that the inside of the cottages in every respect corresponds with the external appearances of the place.’ In October 1836, Franc...

  Blandford’s town council has been giving away free land! Sadly, this is not Blandford, Dorset but in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford which can be found just about an hour’s drive to the south-west of Quebec City, Canada. Despite being mainly French speaking, the small Saint-Louis-de-Blandford town of around 900 people was still named after Blandford in Dorset. To discourage Saint-Louis-de-Blandford’s young and not so young residents from moving away to the city the municipality acquired land which it has been giving away. Applicants have to put down a $1,000  payment and then to commit to build a house worth at least $125,000 within a year. The town then refunds the down payment. Saint-Louis-de-Blandford is well-known for growing excellent cranberries and is regarded as Canada’s capital for this fruit. The town enjoys a proper continental climate of warm summers but the winters are exceedingly cold. If there was a competition for the countries with the most Blandfords then Canada w...