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 […]
A military researcher wants to hear from readers of The West Dorset Magazine if they have an Anzac soldier in their family tree, and especially anyone with wedding photos from that era. Charlie Owen is researching the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, who went through Weymouth during the First World War. Between 1915 and […]
A campaign has been launched to save Weymouth’s landmark Riviera Hotel, after a couple who married there grew increasingly concerned about its future. Tess and Des Shepherd married at the Bowleaze Cove hotel in 2018, having decided it would do just as well as a venue abroad with its breathtaking setting and sweeping views of […]
A Weymouth man is walking 650 miles across England with a 36kg cast-iron postbox on his back, inviting anyone he meets to join him and talk about loneliness. Stu Skinner MBE, 45, set off from Carlisle on September 21 and expects to finish at Portland Bill around December 20. Stu has experienced periods of feeling […]
Portland’s b-side festival is looking for help to buy its premises and secure its future, while fending off an attempt to force its bed and breakfast to change its name. b-side, the organisation that runs the isle’s international arts festival, has secured grants and loans towards the £800,000 it needs to buy its premises, and […]
Dorset archaeology is in the spotlight as archaeologists behind two major Weymouth excavations share their finds. Head to County Hall in Dorchester on Wednesday, October 21 from 11am to 2pm for your exclusive chance to view artefacts unearthed at the North Quay and Weymouth Bowl sites. Historic maps will also be on display during this […]
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.
