The Blandford Express

Known as the ‘ Victoria Cross Pigeon’ , the heroic last flight of carrier pigeon 2709 is remembered in the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp. During World War I, the British Army used pigeons to carry messages. A miniature container would be attached to a bird’s foot in which a note with a message would be put. As pigeons can fly quite fast, the message could be delivered quite quickly. A bizarre feature of the time was the mobile pigeon loft. These were initially horse drawn but later London buses were converted into pigeon lofts. Quite a strange sight they were on the Western Front and some change from their previous role in the streets of London. Each vehicle could carry 60 to 75 birds in specially made coops on the upper deck with feed, stores and an office below. In October 1917, pigeon 2709 was given an important message to deliver from the Passchendaele front-line to the Divisional Headquarters. It left from the Menin Road area at around 1.30pm on the 4 th October 1917...

Thomas Hardy wrote of this Barley Wine style beer: ‘It was the most beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could deliver full of body yet brisk of as a volcano; piquant, yet without a twang; luminous as an autumn sunset, free from streakiness of taste but fully rather heady.’ ( Trumpet Major) Named after the Dorset author and poet, it was created by Dorchester brewers, Eldridge Pope to mark the 40th anniversary of Hardy’s death. However production ceased when the brewery closed in 2003 following its sale to a property company. In 2013 the recipe was acquired by Italian  brewer, Interbrau and from time to time they arrange for special batches of Thomas Hardy Ale to be produced. It has been claimed that Thomas Hardy Ale will last for 25 years.

For stealing four and a half pints of milk, valued at eleven pence and a farthing (around 4.5p),  Adilene Blanche Plaister, a single woman, of Shillingstone was sentenced by Sturminster Newton Magistrates to four months in prison with hard labour. Witnesses had observed her crossing a field at around 5.15am with a bucket under her arm. She was then seen milking a cow which belonged to Shillingstone farmer Edwin Charles Tuffin - a charge she did not deny. The farmer claimed this was the sixth occasion his cow had been milked. The Court was told that Adilene Plaister had previously failed to appear at court stating she would definitely not go even for forty policemen. She was brought to Court under custody. Before Sturminster Newton Magistrates, Adilene Plaister pleaded not guilty but added: ‘I milked his cow but only did it for a bit of fun. I did it to get my own back.’ She alleged that Mr Tuffin had milked someone else’s cow.  On hearing the sentence, Adilene Plaister exclaim...

  From Dorset Gallows to Van Diemen’s Land is the unlikely but true story of political corruption, hangings and transportation in the small market town of Blandford in Southern England.  It is available as a paperback from  Amazon in the United Kingdom, Australia and the USA. The book uncovers the extraordinary tale of two ordinary men, George Long a shoemaker and Richard Bleathman a butcher. Driven by belief and dissatisfaction they are swept along by events. Sentenced to be hanged in Dorchester Gaol for their protests against political corruption they are instead, following clemency appeals,  transported to Van Diemen’s Land -  on the other side of the world. ‘A fascinatingly  good read.  This book entirely complements the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs - also transported to Australia.’ (Richard Holledge, newspaper editor, freelance journalist - London. As read in the Independent, New York Times & Financial Times. Author of   Voices of the M...

At one time members of the Dorset Constabulary were subject to regulations that today would not be acceptable and possibly illegal. A  Dorset police constable could not marry without obtaining the permission of the Chief Constable, Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Symes Cox. He was worried that so many of his constables were married men that he issued the following instruction. ‘The number of married police constables being out of all reasonable proportion to the total strength of the Force so much as to be increasingly inconvenient to the efficient working of the police, No constable for the future will be allowed to marry until he has served at least twelve months and then permission will not be granted until he satisfies the Chief Constable he has saved a sufficient sum of money to enable him to start in life with respectability as a married man.’ (Dorset Constabulary General Orders – August 1864) When the Force had been established in 1856, it had been determined, unless there wer...

A wedding, due to take place in Southampton, had to be cancelled because the bridegroom, Uriah Jones (29) was shot when visiting his fiancé in Sixpenny Handley a few days earlier. As he was kissing his intended Beatrice Sheen (23) ‘goodnight’, sixty-eight shotgun pellets crashed through a window into Uriah Jones’s neck killing him. Fortunately, Miss Sheen was only slightly injured. Suspicion fell on Percy Brownsea, also of Sixpenny Handley, who had enjoyed a previous relationship with Miss Sheen.. He had claimed she had severed this relationship because Uriah Jones, known as Hughie, had money, a house and a lorry. Brownsea had tried his hardest to get her to reconsider her decision. Uriah Jones was a partner with his brother and father in a Southampton sand and gravel business. Brownsea, a woodman and ex-serviceman, was taken into custody by the Dorset Police. He admitted to firing the gun saying he was drunk at the time and he only meant to frighten them. He remembered that Miss Sheen...

North America, it seems has many place names with links to the English county of Dorset.  Wimborne is a Southern Alberta hamlet in Canada. Each year on 1st July, it celebrates ‘Wimborne Day’ with fireworks,  live music and  lawnmower races. The latter being organised by the Lawnmower Fanatics of Alberta. Not to be outdone, Wimborne in Dorset, England has its own Mower Club. Wareham is a town in Massachusetts, USA and was the home of Benjamin Briggs, the  captain of the Mary Celeste - a vessel discovered abandoned and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872. The town has the country’s oldest nail manufacturing factory. There is also a Wareham in Ontario, Canada.  Bridport, Vermont in the USA is a small town of around 1,200 people and was founded back in 1761. Its moto is ‘there’s only one Bridport, USA.’ It also hosts a ‘Bridport Day’ on 14th June. Apparently during the American Revolution, the British burnt down every house in Bridport except one. Weymouth, Massa...

Genges, at the corner of Dorchester’s High West Street and Trinity Street, was once the largest store in the town. Each year, Genges would have a Santa’s Grotto. At Christmas time, back in 1951, Dorchester children in the Grotto, waiting their presents, experienced something of a surprise. Father Christmas lit up a cigarette and his beard just burst into flames. The name of Genges can be seen above the former store’s frontage in High West Street. (Source: Sunday Express - 16th December 1951.)

Despite being only ten  years old, Charlie King of Orchard Street, Blandford was much travelled. With his passion for trains, he had visited  many destinations by rail including Plymouth, Bournemouth, Dover, Templecombe, London, Bath and Weymouth.  Only problem was that he made these journeys on his own and without a ticket. In total, it was reckoned Charlie made as many as sixteen such rail trips without paying his fare. When asked for his rail ticket he would admit he had none and would explain that his mother had given it to the train guard at Blandford. Whichever was his destination he would say he was travelling to meet his uncle. He claimed he was encouraged by other children at his school to go on his railway adventures. Because of his exploits, Charlie King became particularly well known to Sergeant Underwood of the Blandford Police. Matters came to a head when in December 1877 he had to appear before Blandford Magistrates, the Viscount Portman and James John Farq...

Thrilling scenes were witnessed at the top of a hill just out of Charmouth towards Lyme Regis when a fully-grown lion escaped from a van belonging to Chapman’s Zoo. The lion, known as Pasha, was in transit with three tigers between Bridport and Lyme Regis. This all occurred around a Friday lunchtime. The van was being coupled to a tractor when it suddenly ran backwards and crashed into a tree. This caused the doors of the van to burst open which enabled Pasha to escape onto the roadway. The animal did not look overjoyed and just settled down along the roadway. Points of vantage of the spectacle were taken up by the men, women and children of Charmouth. However the best view was obtained by a gentleman who ascended a telegraph pole. An unsuccessful attempt was made to lasso Pasha. A motorcyclist starting his engine startled Pasha causing him to move onto a field belonging to Mr. Goodland of Lilly Farm. There the animal espied some cows. The lion bounded up to them seizing one by the thr...

Poaching in Dorset in the 1800s was a crime chiefly driven by the rural poor’s  need for food. It represented a conflict between landowners who claimed exclusive rights to the valuable game on their estates and the poor who felt a traditional right to access food. Encounters between poachers and gamekeepers were often violent and convicted poachers faced severe penalties. Man-traps were frequently left in place to capture poachers. A desperate poaching affray took place in September 1893 on the estate of Lord Wolverton at Iwerne Minster. Four men who had set nets in a rabbit warren were surprised by an equal number of gamekeepers. The poachers were armed with bludgeons and this all took place around 2 o’clock in the morning. Gamekeeper to Lord Wolverton, Tom Lane said the keepers were first attacked with sticks and he was struck by a heavy blow to his head. They were then stoned but after some hard fighting the four poachers were finally captured. The poachers were in possession of...

‘Pas possible’ were the words spoken by Napoleon Bonaparte when, according to Dorset folk-lore, he stepped ashore in 1804 at Lulworth Cove. Translating as ‘it’s not possible’ this was said to be a judgment on the suitability of Lulworth as a landing-point for a French invasion of England. Author Thomas Hardy would later write a short story A Tradition of 1804 which would be loosely based on this report. Legend has it that the French emperor was recognised by a Dorset farmer’s wife, Mrs Voss who was able to speak a little French. It was a language scarcely ever learned in England in those days but her father was a pottery merchant who had many dealings with France and she had helped him with the paperwork. She was able to recognise his distinctive features from the many caricatures of Napoleon Bonaparte published at the time. It was feared that some 160,000 men and 15,000 horses would make the Channel crossing in a French fleet of flat bottomed boats. Her  husband was too close to t...

Charles Weeks, like many men and women in Dorset in the early 1700s, was deeply enmeshed in the smuggling trade. He operated at Lulworth and all along the Dorset coast and would land goods like brandy, tea and tobacco to evade paying heavy taxes. The rugged coastline provided secretive landing spots that were difficult for customs officials to patrol. Charles Weeks’s house was described as ‘a general magazine of snuff, pepper, cocoa nuts (beans), coffee and other goods.’ Weeks acted also as an organising agent for other smuggling merchants. He lived at Winfrith and recruited most of the village to work for him in the smuggling trade. He had a particularly crafty method of evading customs officials. He would mix seized contraband goods, which he bought at auction, with his own illicit smuggled items. When challenged, he was able to produce legitimate receipts. If this was not accepted, he would threaten litigation knowing that custom officials would be unlikely to follow up as they were...

  Del boy, Rodney and Grandad, from the comedy series Only Fools & Horses, are normally associated with Peckham, South London. Yet one of their most memorable scenes was filmed at Iwerne Minster in North Dorset. The December 1982 programme ‘ A Touch of Glass’ attracted over 10 million television viewers. It is frequently regarded as Only Fools & Horses’ fans favourite scene of the show. Derek Trotter had been given the job of cleaning a valuable glass chandelier at country mansion, Ridgemore Hall. With Del and Rodney up ladders, and only an old sheet between the priceless chandelier and the floor, it was inevitable something would go wrong. Grandad detached the wrong chandelier and it smashed on the floor. As Grandad queried, ‘ Is it very valuable? ’ To which Del retorted, ‘Not really. It was bleeding priceless when it was hanging up there, though!’ Ridgemore Hall was in fact Clayesmore School at Iwerne Minster. However, as the school would not allow the floorboards to be ...