A campaigner claims a controversial planning application has already been decided after Dorset County Show announced it is moving sites. Organisers say they are moving because the show’s current site at Cokers Frome in Dorchester, its home for the past 26 years, is “earmarked for development”. The Thomas Hardy Society opposes plans for up to […]
Villagers saddled up for a laughter-filled day at the inaugural Piddletrenthide Pantomime Horse Racing. This wonderful village event was held at The Manor House, home to James Boughey, who welcomed some 350 villagers and friends for an unforgettable race day, which raised thousands of pounds for All Saints’ Church. Organised by horse race meet experts […]
Dorset MPs are calling for answers after Leweston School – a 135-year-old private school near Sherborne – shut without warning, leaving staff unpaid, 577 children with nowhere to go after half term, and community groups and clubs with no facilities. In a move described by local MP Edward Morello as a “shock and a travesty”, […]
Actor, writer and director Christopher Byram Jury has spent a lifetime in front of and behind the camera. Best known as teenage assistant Eric Catchpole in the BBC series Lovejoy, Chris has written for the likes of The Bill, Casualty and Holby City and spent a decade directing EastEnders. Now semi-retired, Chris has a new […]
Halloween in Weymouth is under way, with a week of trails, parades and family fun taking over the town until November 1. A Spooks by the Sea parade and Trunk ’n’ Treat on Friday, October 30 will feature a Halloween parade, led by spooky stilt-walkers and a ghost shop, starting outside The Range at 5pm, […]
People lucky enough to have tickets to marvel at the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum will see a Norman knight who held Rampisham in West Dorset. According to a local antiquarian journal published over a century ago, Wadard of Bayeux was one of the most faithful servants of William the Conqueror’s half-brother, Bishop Odo. […]
A new novel by former newspaper editor Margery Hookings was launched at Washingpool Farm Shop on Saturday, October 10. Plashy Fen by Maddie Grigg Published under the pen name Maddie Grigg, Plashy Fen is set in an imagined Dorset village by the sea. Margery was editor of the Bridport & Lyme Regis News from 1999 […]
A year after opening in South Street, Dorchester, Olive & Wilde Studios is about to become a gallery for the first time. When Laura Delage-Pandeli launched the studio on October 1 last year, it was a design practice and a co-working space in a Georgian townhouse at the South Walks end of South Street. A […]
There must be something in the water in West Dorset – there’s a mighty army of OAPs who keep on working and refuse to hang up their boots, working past retirement age. With those in their 50s and early 60s now looking down the barrel of retirement at 67 and 68, maybe this is less […]
We are Bird Media – two experienced journalists who have decided to break free and launch
their own news publication The West Dorset Magazine.
Editor Miranda Robertson has worked for a number of local papers, including the Dorset Echo, Salisbury Journal and The New Blackmore Vale. She lives in Maiden Newton with her husband Peter, son Robert, jug PugsieMfanwy, pug Hugo and the ginger ninja Kitten Mitten.
Karen Bate has worked for the Salisbury Journal, Wiltshire Living Magazine, Bournemouth Echo and The New Blackmore Vale. She lives with husband Stuart, daughter Florence, dogs Sir Alfred Sticks and Buddy and cat Milton. There’s also a bonkers horse called Mars in her menagerie.
