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The SDFHS Blog

Bonfires and Dragons

Posted on 6th November 2013

Patricia Spencer summaries an event held in the SDFHS Meeting Room On Monday afternoon (4th November) Jacqueline Dillion of Harding University gave a fascinating talk on the history of bonfires in Britain for our next-door neighbours, Sherborne Museum, who use our Meeting Room for some of their events Jacqueline is currently finishing her PhD thesis on Folklore in the Works of Thomas Hardy and so started her talk with Hardy’s description of a bonfire on Egdon Heath in Return of the... more

Lucky Wedding Charm

Posted on 3rd November 2013

Barbara Elsmore describes a wedding tradition of the Collings family I am off to the wedding in Chicago of my nephew, Simon Collings, and his bride, all American girl Sarah, asked if there is a family tradition that could be observed and I racked my brains to think of one Then I remembered my mother had me walking up the aisle with a silver three penny piece in my shoe A quick look through a box of family treasures and I found a little box with five silver ‘thrupenny bits’ in it I did not... more

A preview of the November ‘Greenwood Tree’

Posted on 26th October 2013

Bob Barber, Editor of The Greenwood Tree previews the latest issue The November edition of The Greenwood Tree will be reaching members shortly The cover features a snapshot from our Facebook page, recently set up by new website manager, Patricia Spencer You can read more about it on the Research and Society News page at the back of the journal The impact of social media will have important implications for family historians, and our Society And it will certainly be a challenge to see how The... more

Sherborne is now Casterbridge

Posted on 23rd October 2013

Patricia Spencer describes the temporary transformation of the SDFHS centre Arriving this morning for a meeting at our Sherborne Centre we found that the exterior of our building had been transformed into 'The Friends' Alms-House' as it will appear in the new version of Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd which is being filmed in Sherborne this week There is a news report about the filming in Sherborne here on the BBC website Patricia... more

Open Day on 12 October

Posted on 14th October 2013

Patricia Spencer reports on the recent SDFHS Open Day After a very wet start to the day, the sun came out in Sherborne in the late morning on Saturday, encouraging shoppers to drop into our Sherborne Research Centre for our Open Day Many commented on our lovely premises, which we lease from the Sherborne Almshouse, founded in the fifteenth century Our building isn’t quite as old - part of it was built in 1893 when the previous buildings on the site were demolished to widen Cheap Street;... more