The Blandford Express

A Portland man claimed he was brought up as a child to help smugglers run cargoes ashore at Church Hope Cove - a small, secluded beach on the eastern side of the Isle of Portland. Later, as a young man, he remembered one night landing 150 kegs of brandy there and then hurrying home to bed. He had not been in bed long before a coastguard officer knocked on the door asking him to help the Service out. He agreed and did this for several days and was then offered a job onboard the Revenue cutter Eagle. This meant chasing smugglers up and down the English Channel, confiscating their goods and sending them to Dorchester Gaol. Curiously these coastguard officers were smugglers themselves continuously making flying trips across the Channel and bringing home cargo after cargo of contraband goods. They would then sail out and capture some poor smuggler who never did half the business they did in a month. This group of reprobate officials was led by a former lieutenant in the British Navy. (Sourc...

North Dorset Railway is a heritage project which is, step by step, bringing Shillingstone station back to life. Here are some newspaper cuttings from the station’s past. Some show that then, safety was not always a prime consideration. The station was closed as a result of Beeching cuts back in the 1960s. Accident on Line.  On Wednesday morning when the Somerset & Dorset train leaving Poole at 8.10 was within half a mile off Shillingstone, and going at the rate of 30mph, the driver noticed a bull jump the fence from a field and stumble into the line when the train was only a dozen yards off and before it could get out of the way the right-hand life-guard and buffer of the engine caught it and literally cut it in pieces.’ (Weymouth Telegram: 22 nd May 1874) Railway Supper. On Friday, the employees of the Traffic & Permanent Way at Shillingstone Station held their annual supper in the school room (kindly lent by Reverend EA Dayman). Upwards of 30 partook of an excellent repa...

 In the Bridport News of Friday 6th February 1903, nonagenarian Digory Hopkins Gordge recalled his time as a Charmouth smuggler. With agricultural wages depressingly low, at around 16 old pence (6p) per day, merely carrying goods from a smuggling vessel to shore could earn around 30 old pence (12p) per night. This was an attractive proposition and could help to put food on the table. While farmers might complain about the effects of smuggling on their workforce, they would also be grateful to make gains from the trade themselves. Born in Bridport in 1809, Digory remembered in the 1830s a French lugger, carrying kegs of brandy, lying about four miles off shore. French crews, mainly from Cherbourg, would ship cargoes to the Dorset coast. They were guided to favoured landing places by fast growing clumps of trees planted on hills behind each inlet. Only the darkest nights were chosen for a smuggling job. As many as 70 men, drawn from local villages, put off in boats and came back with...

Charles Edgar Brine (20) was, on the face of it, a quite respectable agent for the Prudential Insurance Company and had recently moved from Blandford to Wimborne. However, he also had a duplicitous sideline involving the sale of bicycles.       In June 1891, Charles Edgar Brine appeared before Wimborne magistrates charged with stealing two bicycles valued at nineteen pounds. The first bicycle he had ‘borrowed’ from Frank King, a Wimborne machinist, to go on a ride with a friend. He said his friend was so impressed with the machine that he had kept it for a period and would probably offer to buy it. Brine said he would send King a telegram when he heard from the friend. None was received but Brine insisted he had sent one. In fact he had already sold the bicycle for just three pounds. He told the buyer he had sold it for a friend who was short of money. The second bicycle he had bought himself on hire purchase having paid a deposit of two pounds, Eleven pounds & eleven...

  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...

  With five substantial courses and twelve alcoholic toasts, Blandford Corporation’s 1910 Dinner was not a weight-watcher’s affair. The evening opened at Blandford’s Crown Hotel with a choice of either mock turtle or julienne soup accompanied with a glass of sherry. This was followed by fish which could be turbot, shrimp sauce, or fried fillets of sole. With this there was a German hock. After the fish, there were lamb cutlets and peas. Next was a meat course offering boned turkey, pheasant, York ham, roast chicken, game pie, spiced beef, tongue, sirloin of beef and finally galantine of beef. With this course there was both claret and champagne. As an ‘ entremets’ or desert, there was a choice of plum pudding, trifle, white jellies, compote of pears, apple tart or vanilla creams. As a ‘ digestif ’, one could partake of a glass of port. Then, twelve toasts followed responded to by twenty five diners interspersed by eight songs and two violin solos. First toast of the evening was to...

When 149 Dorset adults and children joined the vessel, the Emigrant at Plymouth on the 5 th March 1849 they were joining a vessel that was to become known as the ‘ Ship of Death’ . More than half were from the villages of Stourpaine & Durweston, about 30 were from Child Okeford and the remainder came from different villages around Blandford.  Durweston clergyman, Sydney Godolphin Osborne saw them all embark on board the 754 ton three-mast barque, whose master was William Henry Kemp. Also on board were the captain’s wife, Sarah and three-year old daughter, Fanny. The voyage had been organised by the Blandford Colonisation Society who had held its first meeting in January earlier that year. It could be said, however, that the real purpose of the Society was to export the problem of the district’s poor to the Antipodes. Living conditions at the time for ordinary folk were poor and often insanitary with the situation in the village of Stourpaine being particularly bad. For those ...

  James Bartlett was a staunch advocate of the Conservative political cause, was strongly opposed to vaccinations and was strictly teetotal. He was owner of local newspaper, the Blandford Express in whose columns he had argued that the number of public houses in the town should be drastically reduced. Born in Durweston, he spent his early years working on a farm before moving to Blandford to set up a printing business without any training in this trade. George Vince was a fishmonger with different political views and certainly was not teetotal. In fact he had two convictions for being drunk and disorderly. The two clashed at lunchtime on Monday 15 th June 1885 when Bartlett refused to buy any fish. The altercation took place outside the newspaper offices, known as 'Printer's Corner' at the corner of Salisbury Street and White Cliff Mill Street. Bartlett’s refusal angered Vince such that he described the former as ‘a --------- turnip hacker, shepherd boy and that’s what h...

  The inhabitants of Stourpaine were on Sunday morning thrown into a state of most painful excitement by the report that their most highly esteemed clergyman, the Reverend C F Tufnell had committed suicide by cutting his throat. It appears that the unfortunate gentleman had been labouring for sometime past under depression of spirits. (Somerset County Gazette 3 rd August 1867)   Six dairy cows belonging to Stourpaine farmer, John Coles were killed on the Somerset & Dorset line near Shillingstone.   On Friday afternoon a little boy, eight years of age was sent after the cows. He let them in on the line but before he could get them off on the opposite side the up-express, which is booked to arrive at Blandford at 3.30pm, emerged from the cutting and dashed through the cows. Five of the seven which were killed on the spot and another died in the night through injuries received. (Western Gazette – 8 th September 1871) The Stourpaine Temperance Friends were so satisf...

Dorset dialect is said to have originated from the Saxon invaders that landed in the county in the sixth century. Some less well-known ‘ Do’set ’ words include: ‘ Boris-noris’ meaning to go on recklessly without thought to risk or decency; ‘ Twanketon ’ meaning melancholy; ‘ Dumbledore ’ meaning a bumblebee; ‘ Torididdle ’ meaning to be out of one's  mind and ‘ God’s almighty cow’ which surprisingly is a ladybird! In June 1932, the following message was sent to King George V from the Society of Dorset Men; ‘Sire, Do’set Men at the yearly feast in the King’s Hall, Holborn Restaurant has ‘bidden woonce mwore to zend ‘ee their loyal and loven greetens. May ‘ee be spared vor years to zit wi friends avore the vierzide an’ dwell at hwome in peace. God bless ‘ee I d’bide your vaithful survint. Angus V Hamro; Society of Do’set Men.’ Radio fright claimed its first victim in July 1927 and deprived listeners of the opportunity of hearing the Dorset dialect over the radio for the first...

  Blandford’s 1891 Census lists the following people in Alexandra Street: Ambrose Tiller            (48)      Head               Marionette  Proprietor Elizabeth Tiller            (61)      Wife Ambrose Tiller             (22)      Son                  Musician Lucy Tiller                    (19)      Daughter         Costumier   Walter Tiller               (25)      H...

  Jack Hargreaves OBE was a television presenter and writer who lived for several years in the village of Belchalwell. Despite being London born, he is remembered for his nostalgic and gentle programmes about the countryside. These included ‘ Gone Fishing’ , ‘ Out of Town’ and ‘ Old Country ’. They appeared long before and were forerunners of ‘ Countryfile ’.  Many of his programmes were filmed in his Belchalwell home’s potting shed and this provided the inspiration for comedian Charlie Higson’s character, Bob Fleming who regularly appeared in television’s ‘ The Fast Show’. Jack also conceived and presented ‘ How? ’ for 15 years the children’s how does it work programme with co-presenters Fred Dineage and Bunty James. Behind his gentle and unassuming broadcasting manner Jack Hargreaves was a shrewd individual and successful businessman. His reputation as a communicator earned him a role setting up broadcasting services for the allied military services before and after D Da...

Leonard Burt was a Dorset Constabulary policeman whose groundwork led to the arrest of five members of the Portland Spy Ring in 1961. During the autumn of 1959 the Detective Officer became aware of Harry Houghton, a Portland Naval Base clerk whose lifestyle and excessive drinking were incompatible with his clerk’s salary. Burt found it quite incredible that this man, who had been sent back from Poland because of his excessive drinking and black market activities, had been posted to the Portland Underwater Establishment. Here, some of Britain’s most secret submarine defence activities were carried out. Houghton had been involved in selling penicillin, a drug which was in short supply in Poland. He also frequently boasted about his invitations to attend parties at the Polish Embassy where he met up with old Polish friends. Burt’s discreet observations led to him finding that Houghton spent many evenings drinking heavily in the Elm Tree public house, Langton Herring. He would then make hi...