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The Pasley Engine Company, Sherborne

Posted on 29th November 2015

On Saturday 21 November 2015 we held our second successful 'Sherborne's Industrial Archaeology' day, chaired by George Tatham and with talks on several fascinating topics by Barry Brock and Graham Bendell Here Graham summarises the history of William Henry Pasley and his Sherborne-based engine company William Henry Pasley was born in Ireland in the late 1850s By 1871 he was an apprentice ironmonger Clearly he learnt his trade well as, by 1881, he was an ironmonger employing five people in... more

The Greenwood Tree – preview of the November 2015 edition

Posted on 28th October 2015

The November 2015 issue of The Greenwood Tree will be appearing soon, and we have another larger-than-usual edition this time – 36 pages of articles, regular features and news Following the very successful Rid(e)out symposium held at the Family History Centre in Sherborne in August, we have two articles by speakers on that occasion Roger Guttridge, the local journalist, author and former editor of The Greenwood Tree, has updated his research into Roger Ridout, a local smuggler in the 18th... more

More Family Treasures

Posted on 22nd October 2015

Barbara Elsmore has been scouring the charity shops of Sherborne collecting items, with no apparent monetary value, and using them to create a display at our Family History Centre where she hopes they will act as reminders to members and visitors of things they may have used, or seen used, in the past and become talking points You may have noticed that I love coming across old things, once in regular use, that have a story to tell First up I trawled through my own garage where I found a... more

Do you have a carpenter in the family?

Posted on 9th October 2015

Barbara Elsmore describes how learning a new trade enabled her great-grandfather, George Collings, to improve his own life and that of his descendants Many of his carpentry tools are still in the family and some are now on display in the SDFHS Family History Centre in Sherborne In 1862 fourteen year old George Collings signed an apprenticeship form and for the next four years he would learn how to become a carpenter How could he possibly have known how this would change his life from that of... more

‘The Greenwood Tree’ 1975-2015 – now available as PDFs

Posted on 16th August 2015

All editions published to date of the SDFHS award-winning journal The Greenwood Tree are now digitally available in fully-searchable PDFs, as the Editor, Bob Barber, explains In the August edition of The Greenwood Tree we announced that we are making available for sale the set of 40 years of the journal in digital format, as PDF files The digitised set covers the years 1975-2015, up to and including the August 2015 edition The November 2015 Greenwood Tree will in due course be made available... more

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