A beloved family farm has reopened, thanks to a dedicated pair of animal lovers. Lee and Charlotte Porter have opened Porter’s Farm on the site of the old Fancys Farm on Portland, which had been there for 18 years. They are currently open Friday-Monday 9.30am-4.30pm and hope to open six days a week soon. Charlotte […]
Day in the Life at Dorset Studio School: From Work Experience to Apprenticeship For Year 11 student Tobyn Copp, leaving school will not mean stepping into the unknown. As he completes his final examinations at Dorset Studio School, Tobyn is preparing to begin an apprenticeship with The Brace of Butchers in Poundbury, Dorchester. A role […]
All eight on call fire stations threatened with closure are to stay open – for now. Andy Cole, chief fire officer for Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue, changed his recommendation to the board after a prolonged campaign by concerned residents and thousands of responses to a public consultation. The eight stations – Maiden Newton, […]
Clay Pigeon Raceway, the West Dorset karting track which helped to launch the careers of world champions Lando Norris and Jensen Button, is to be closed and turned into a holiday park. Dorset councillors approved plans to demolish the circuit near Dorchester, along with a static caravan park and a disused clay pigeon shooting ground, […]
The first planning application of a scheme dubbed ‘Norchester’ that will change the shape of ‘Hardy country’ forever has been submitted. The outline planning application launching the North Dorchester Garden Community has been described as “nothing more than cultural vandalism”. The plan for up to 500 houses, a new London Road junction and green space […]
A writer has traced the stories behind 43 names listed on a Weymouth war memorial. Charlie Owen asked readers of The West Dorset Magazine to help locate family members of the fallen from both world wars and the Falklands. They were commemorated on a monument built over 100 years ago in the graveyard of St […]
A developer hoping to build 82 homes on 21 acres of his 131-acre estate has told a national newspaper he is being treated like “the Antichrist”. James Perkins, who bought fire-ravaged Parnham House near Beaminster with the intention of restoring it, told The Times he intended to spend £25million on the Grade 1-listed Elizabethan manor, […]
For hundreds of years, he’s been standing proud, waving his enormous club whilst keeping watch over the sleepy village at his feet. Now, re-chalking of the Cerne Abbas Giant is underway, with National Trust rangers, volunteers and members of the public working together on the steep chalk hillside to restore his distinctive white outline. The […]
By MARY CLEGG, Churchwarden: Tucked away in the timeless landscape of the Halstock Vale stands St Juthware Church, a small rural church with a story that stretches back to the fifth century – and a very present-day crisis in its roof. Today, rainwater is finding its way through a huge hole in the roof, threatening […]
Bridport lawyer tackling ‘wrongful conviction’ in infamous farmhouse mass murder Emily Bolton. Photo by Pete Millson The Bridport lawyer who freed wrongly-convicted Andy Malkinson has taken on an even higher profile case – that of Jeremy Bamber, who was jailed 41 years ago for killing five members of his family. Emily Bolton spent much of […]