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The SDFHS Blog

The Greenwood Tree – Sept 2021

Posted on 24th August 2021

The theme of the September edition of The Greenwood Tree is Grandfathers and members and readers provided the usual fund of great stories, this time about male ancestors several generations back Editor Paul Radford previews the edition which has been mailed to SDFHS members who can also view or download it from the Members’ Area of the Society’s website The magazine also provides necessary information for the Society’s forthcoming AGM/Open Day on September 18 which will be held via Zoom... more

Hethfelton building site

Posted on 8th August 2021

In 1929 my grandfather Arthur Collings, a carpenter/builder by trade, became the foreman for the construction of a new building in or near Hethfelton, Wool, Dorset He had a Box Brownie camera and he took pictures of the building site which had quite a large workforce Some of the men, including Frank Hann later identified by my father, would have travelled from Nether Compton and stayed on-site somewhere during the week One thing that struck me was the height of the scaffolding... more

Putting Somerset on the early photographic map

Posted on 18th July 2021

Somerset’s first professional photographer was someone about whom relatively little is known, even amongst photographic historians He was Thomas Sharp (1806-1896), who was born in London, but who lived much of his early life in North Devon This blog post records our efforts to have Sharp recognised as the photographer responsible for a portrait which until now has been credited to Roger Fenton, perhaps the best known early photographer Photograph: Major-General Charles Ashe Windham -... more

The Greenwood Tree – June 2021

Posted on 27th May 2021

The front cover of the June edition of The Greenwood Tree shows a 19th century painting of a lawyer’s office to illustrate the theme of Wills The caption “Where There’s a Will … There’s a Won’t”, suggests that some of the most revealing information we extract from ancestral wills may involve those who are deliberately omitted from an inheritance or left something derisory Distant family feuds are hard to find in other ways Editor Paul Radford previews the edition which will be... more

Victorian Utilities

Posted on 5th May 2021

Under the Floorboards at Beaucroft House, Wimborne Following on from the House Histories Edition of the March 2021 Greenwood Tree Magazine and subsequent blog about the Victorian Loo, I would like to expand a little further When the family moved into "Court House", the Western wing of "Beaucroft", there was some modernisation required to the plumbing and electrics Up came the floorboards and revealed all sorts of pipes and cables installed since 1876 There was a network of bare... more

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