The Blandford Express

A Dorset village was once recognised as the bravest in England. That village was Shillingstone in North Dorset. After the outbreak of World War I, the newspaper the Weekly Dispatch inaugurated a competition for the village that sent, in the first six months of the war, the highest percentage of its population into the British Services. According to local newspaper, the Western Gazette Shillingstone sent 90 men out of a total population of 565. (Western Gazette Friday 26 th September 1919) Across the country,  365 other villages sent in their returns. However, the competition would not prove to be short of controversy. The award was made to Knowlton in Kent which with 39 inhabitants and six houses had sent 11 men. However, the Rector of Shillingstone, Dr Cooke protested that Knowlton was too small to be a village and in fact was a hamlet. The matter was referred to the Attorney General, Sir Frederick Smith who held that the original decision should stand as no minimum populatio...

  There have been harsh winters since but nothing has quite compared with the Great Freeze of 1962/63. This long cold spell was reckoned to be the most severe in Dorset for two hundred years and the month of January 1963 was the coldest ever recorded. On the 29 th & 30 th December 1962, a two day continuous snow blizzard swept across the county. There were massive snow drifts and outlying villages were completely cut off. The River Stour froze over completely at Blandford and for around 15 miles of its length and it remained so for around two months. This enabled both ice skating and ice hockey to take place on the thick ice. While at Poole harbour, even the sea froze over. While roads were blocked, the Somerset & Dorset railway line and Blandford station still operated. Somehow, the line’s steam locomotives were able to push their way through the snow. At the time, there were proposals to close uneconomic lines like the ‘S & D ’. This led to some tongue in cheek...