01935 429609
Somerset & Dorset
Family History Society

The SDFHS Blog

Grandad’s spade – another object with a story to tell

Barbara Elsmore tells the story of another of her family treasures - one that won't fit into her box and which 'won't buckle'! It crept up slowly, the need to get the boxes of family photos and mementoes down from the loft where I had stashed them hastily following my mother's death three years previously I soon found myself transported back in time, when I found a photo of my brother Roger standing in the wheelbarrow belonging to my grandfather Arthur Collings in the garden of the old house...
more

A Boxful of Family Treasures

Barbara Elsmore describes the contents of her own box of family treasures, each with its reminder of past owners, helping her to envisage the lives of her ancestors I had had no idea of the word 'mnemonic' although I have used mnemonics many times over the years - 'i before e except after c', '30 days hath September', 'one collar and two socks' to remember how to spell necessary - I am sure you can think of more that have helped you too as an aid to the memory I first became aware that this...
more

William Rowland – iron founder of Sherborne.

William Rowland, one of Sherborne's iron founders, whose name can still be seen on gratings around the town, featured in one of Graham Bendell's talks at our Industrial Archaeology Day on 22 November William Rowland was born in Bristol about 1840 By 1851 his family had moved to Salisbury where his father was in business as an engineer and iron founder employing three men William was working for his father in 1861 as an engineer An advertisement in The Western Gazette, dated 11th October 1867,...
more

Industrial Archaeology Day

Our last Saturday event of the year was a real tour de force by Graham Bendell and Barry Brock who described aspects of Sherborne’s industrial heritage in a series of short illustrated talks which contained a positive wealth of information ‘Industrial Archaeology Day’ (held at our Family History Centre in Sherborne on 22 November) was chaired by George Tatham who said in his introduction that the afternoon could only provide a ‘taster’ of the subjects to be discussed and that he...
more

Identifying a mystery object

Barbara Elsmore tells the fascinating story of an unusual object which she first encountered as a child in her grandparents' home in Nether Compton and with which she was recently reunited in Sherborne Ann-Marie Wilkinson, in her Chairman's musings in the latest Greenwood Tree, ponders on souvenirs and other items that our ancestors might have collected and prized and she suggests we should ask our relatives, if we can, why these items might be important to them I very much regret not asking...
more

Archives