The Blandford Express

As in the past joining the British Army was rarely an attractive proposition, recruiting sergeants would result to ruses, often with a publican’s help, to snare unwilling prey. That is what happened to an unsuspecting, ‘ railway navvy’ during a rowdy Saturday night in the Three Choughs Inn, Blandford in November 1858. He was with a group of construction workers who were employed to build the new railway line from Wimborne to Blandford. The ‘ navvies ’ were not particularly popular with the locals and had a reputation for fighting, heavy drinking and general rowdy behaviour. ‘ Taking the King, or Queen’s Shilling’ has long been slang for enlisting in the British Army as for many years a shilling (5p) was akin to a signing-on payment made to new recruits. The recruiting sergeant would ensure his target became drunk and would then slip a shilling into a back pocket. The next day the unfortunate and hung over victim would be hauled before a magistrate who would confirm that he was the Br...

Stourpaine & Durweston Railway Halt opened on the 9 th July 1928. Practically everyone in the two villages at the time had walked down to the Halt to watch the departure of the 8.06am to Bournemouth. Local newspaper the Western Gazette reported that the locals had adorned the Halt with flags. However, just seven passengers joined the train which included local clergyman, the Reverend C Cooke. Unfortunately, because the Halt stood on an open embankment it proved to be exceedingly cold for passengers waiting on the platform the following winter. So, the following April, the railway company built a ‘ substantially-built shelter for the convenience of passengers.’ Although the track through the Halt was single line, there was a passing point just to the north of the Halt. The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway or ‘ S&D’ connected Bristol and Bath with Bournemouth West, a station now long closed. The line was used for both freight and passengers and its stations included Sta...

Life in Dorset in the 1830s was pretty tough for ordinary folk. Agricultural wages were among the lowest in the country and farm mechanisation was reducing available work. At the time, there was also much social unrest with riots in Poole, Blandford, Handley & Sherborne. So it was no surprise that several Dorset families decided in 1836 to become ‘Bounty Immigrants’ and seek out a better life in Australia. This was an early assisted passage scheme sponsored by the new colony and the Australian land owning Macarthur family. For its time, the scheme was incredibly progressive. Each family was given a three year contract, a wage, a cottage rent free and a plot of land. Among the first Dorset Bounty Immigrants were the Arnold & Norris families from Child Okeford, two Butt families from Winterborne Stickland, the Coxs & Elliots from Farnham and the New, Thorn, Vincent & three Weeks families from Handley. They all arrived safely in New South Wales on 8 th April 1837 and mai...

Tarrant Rushton airfield played a key role in the 1948/49 Berlin Airlift. At the time, Flight Refuelling was based at Tarrant Rushton and it was Sir Alan Cobham’s company that supplied the German capital with fuel. After the Second World War, Germany was divided into Russian, American, French & British zones. Berlin, the country’s capital was similarly divided but was located deep inside the Russian occupied sector. In June 1948, the Russians decided to block all road and rail access into the Western occupied parts of Berlin. By doing so, they hoped to starve Western Berliners of food and supplies and to force the United States, France and Britain to withdraw from the capital. The Allies responded by supplying Berlin from the air, known as the Berlin airlift. Flight Refuelling operated twelve Lancaster & Lancastrian aircraft which had been converted to carry fuel. The company’s first aircraft, laden with fuel, left Tarrant Rushton for Berlin on 27 th July 1948. The company’ tw...

In the 1700s, the Greyhound Inn was one of the three great coaching inns of Blandford and was both stylish and substantial. The other two great inns were the Crown and the Red Lion. In fact, the Greyhound dates back to the early 1600s. This inn was a regular stopping point for horse drawn coaches travelling between London and the West of England. The Greyhound was destroyed in the 1731 Great Fire of Blandford. It was then rebuilt with an impressive Market Place facing frontage together with sizeable back buildings which included stables, a tap room, workshops and a brewery. The front part covered 3,150 sq ft and the back buildings a further 3,100 sq ft. In 1779, the Inn was advertising it had an excellent and much used billiard table. On Bonfire Night in 1805, the Greyhound Inn was one of the many stopping points to change his horses for Lieutenant John Richards Lapenotiere of the Royal Navy. He was taking the news of victory at the Battle of Trafalgar and of Horatio Nelson’s death to ...

At one time Blandford could boast of one of the largest oak trees in the country. Known as the ‘ Damory Oak’ , it is reckoned to date back to the 10 th or 11 th centuries. It was said to be 75 ft high and to have a circumference of 68 ft at ground level. As the tree decayed, it became hollow forming a great cavity which could house 20 men. This was 15 ft wide and 17 ft high. During the English Civil War an old man ran the cavity as an ale house. Appropriately, some three centuries later there was a pub nearby at the bottom of Damory Court Street, now closed, that was called the ‘ Damory Oak’ . In 1703, the ‘ Damory Oak’ suffered greatly in a violent storm when several of its largest branches were torn off. After the Great Fire of Blandford in 1731, the hollow trunk provided shelter to two homeless families. Sadly, by 1755 the great ‘ Damory Oak’ was in a sorry state and was sold for firewood for just fourteen pounds.

Although he was born in Staffordshire, photographic pioneer, Thomas Wedgwood   spent five years, from 1800 to 1805, living at Eastbury House in Tarrant Gunville. Regarded by many as ‘ the first photographer’ , he was a member of the famous Stoke-on-Trent potteries family, the Wedgwoods. Throughout his life he suffered from poor health which is probably the reason he moved to the Dorset countryside. He used paper and white leather coated with silver nitrate to make his first images. However, he did not know how to ‘fix’ the images and they would continue to darken on exposure to light. They could only be preserved if kept in darkness and he would show his work to friends in the light of a candle. Thomas Wedgwood suffered from a mysterious illness and spent much of his lifetime searching for a cure. Sadly he died in 1805, aged just 34, and his will is held by the National Archives in London. Another Dorset born man, Henry Fox Talbot , who was born at Melbury, would take the de...

  Among Somerset & Dorset railway stations in Dorset was Broadstone, the county's most named station - at six times! Other stations were: Parkstone – opened June 1874: closed to freight September 1965. Poole – opened December 1872: closed to freight July 1966. Creekmore Halt – opened June 1933: closed March 1966. New Poole Junction (then Poole Junction, then Poole Junction & Broadstone, then Broadstone & New Poole Junction, then Broadstone Junction and finally Broadstone from July 1929.) – opened December 1872: closed to passengers March 1966/closed to freight September 1965. Corfe Mullen Halt – opened July 1928: closed September 1956. Sturminster Marshall ( Bailey Gate from November 1863) – opened November 1860: closed to passengers March 1966/closed to freight April 1965. Spetisbury – opened November 1860: closed September 1956. Charlton Marshall – opened July 1928: closed September 1956. Blandford St Mary (temporary station until September 1...

  Charles Maidment was one of this country’s finest jockeys. Dorset born & bred, Charlie was born in Sixpenny Handley in 1845 and lived for several years in Blandford before he married. With 76 wins each, he shared the Jockey’s Championship with William Gray in 1870 and then with George Fordham the following year with 86 each. In 1871, he won the One Thousand Guineas, the Oaks and the St Leger on Hannah . The following year he won the Derby on Cremorne and the St Leger on Wenlock . After his 1872 Derby win, he suffered a short illness. This it is reckoned to have been due to the aniline dye in his silk jockey’s jacket. Sadly, Charlie Maidment was not good at managing his money. Despite amassing a fortune from his winnings he squandered it and in 1875 was listed in the Cambridge Bankruptcy Court. Owners then tended to shun him until he rode Kisber to win the 1876 Derby at Epsom. He married Mary Vickery Percy and they had four daughters. However, she had health issues. The Bury...

When Thomas Rose and his family arrived in New South Wales, Australia, in January 1793 with their four children, they were the first free and independent British settlers in the new colony. They had arrived from England on the sailing vessel, Bellona . Thomas Rose was born in Blandford in 1754 and baptized later that year in Sturminster Newton. In 1779, he had married Jane Topp also in Sturminster Newton. According to the Sydney Gazette , she would later become the Australian colony’s first great grandmother. Australian Governor, Arthur Phillip had made repeated requests to London for intelligent and experienced farmers. Rose fitted this description and it was noted that he was ‘ the most respectable of these people and apparently the best calculated for a bona fide settler.’ Previously, Britain had sent out convicts, accompanied by soldiers. The First Fleet brought out 730 convicts in eleven vessels arriving in January 1788. The Rose family eventually put down their roots in th...

‘Here comes old Father Christmas Bringing Christmas cheer The juicy beef and pudding The brown and foaming beer. Quoth he – “The beer is famous, Better I cannot find”; It’s warms the aching bosom, It cheers the laden mind. JOHN LEWIS MARSH , he brewed it, I like it more and more, Then go to his Town Brewery, To buy your Christmas Store.’   John Lewis Marsh, Christmas 1885. John Lewis Marsh’s beer was brewed in his Bryanston Street Brewery just behind the King’s Arms public house in Blandford. John had an eye for publicity promoting his brews sometimes adopting a Dorset dialect. ‘When I be tired, vaint or dry Then MARSH’S ALES’s the drink vor I Do gee me strength to work apace And makes me laugh all awver me face!’ Some of his claims were a little excessive and no doubt made ‘ tongue in cheek.’ He claimed his beers had health-giving benefits and even reckoned by regular consumption you could live for ever! Sadly as John Lewis is no longer with us...

Blandford's first hospital opened in 1883 and was financed by Miss Portman, a member of Bryanston’s Portman family. It could be found adjacent to the Corner Coffee House near the junction of Salisbury Street and White Cliff Mill Street. The Coffee House was run by the Church and was a sort of welfare centre. One of its earliest patients was a man who had been involved in a wagon accident at Tarrant Hinton. According to the Blandford Express of 17 th March 1883, he was taken to ‘ the new Cottage Hospital.’ From 1885 to 1887 it became known as ‘ Nurse House’ but did not take in-patients. They were sent to hospitals in Bath, Dorchester, Weymouth or Bournemouth. In September 1887, Blandford Hospital Sunday took place when members of friendly societies and public bodies joined a procession to Blandford Church. The service collection and other donations were passed to local hospitals including the Nurse House. While the previous week the village of Pimperne had passed on the veget...

Badger is not the only business to have brewed beer locally. A few miles to the north-west of Blandford could be found the Durweston Brewery owned by Henry Godwin. However, it is now more than a century since the Godwin Brewery produced its last pint. Henry Godwin had a workforce of sixteen and, for the times, he must have been quite an enlightened employer. There is a newspaper report of a brewery works outing in the 1860s to the Bath & West Show for all his staff. Among his employees was a brewer, maltster, stoker, brewery labourers and a carter who distributed beer to the Godwin public houses. Established in 1753, the Godwin Brewery remained in the family’s hands until it was sold to Hall & Woodhouse in 1898. Henry Godwin was unmarried and there was no younger family member to take on the business. At that time, the Durweston Brewery had an estate of twenty-six   pubs. When the business closed, Henry Colpitts Godwin ‘ brewer, maltster & aerated water manufactur...

  Featured is Coryates Halt which could be found on the Abbotsbury branch line. It opened in May 1906 but closed in December 1952. Other now almost forgotten Dorset railway stations include: Abbotsbury opened in November 1885: closed in December 1952. Broadstone opened in December 1872: closed for passengers in March 1966. Bridport East Street opened in March 1884: closed in September 1930. Bridport West Bay opened in March 1884: closed for passengers in September 1930. Blandford (Blandford Forum from September 1953) opened in November 1860: closed for passengers from March 1966. Charlton Marshall opened in July 1928: closed in September 1956. Creekmoor Halt opened in June 1933: closed in March 1966. Lyme Regis opened in August 1903: closed for passengers in November 1965. Portland opened in October 1865: closed for passengers in March 1952. Powerstock opened in November 1857: closed for passengers May 1975. Sandsfoot Castle (on Portland branch line) ...

After Danish born Bertha Hartung Olsen had appeared before Swanage Magistrates, she became known as the ‘ Brownsea Island Amazon’ . It was alleged that the 26 year old, ‘ good looking blonde’ had thrown a girl into the sea ‘ like a sack of wool’ and had also lifted up the girl’s father by his trousers. The physical training expert had been recruited as a security guard by the Island’s owner, Mary Florence Bonham Christie. Mrs Bonham Christie had bought Brownsea Island in 1927 for £125,000 and immediately banned both fishing and hunting. She was a keen supporter of the RSPCA and wanted the Island to become a bird and animal sanctuary. To achieve this, she had evicted nearly 200 Island residents. As a result, she was given locally the nickname, the ‘Demon of Brownsea'. John Walter Batt, a Bournemouth tailor, had been digging for worms as bait on Brownsea Island foreshore for 30 years. He had just received a solicitor’s letter warning him that he had committed a trespass. It was ...