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Canford Magna memories

Here are memories of Canford Magna and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Canford Magna or a Canford Magna photo.

Canford School

My mother was a cook at Canford School. I remember her Christmas parties being held in the great hall. It was/is such a magnificent house.  Oh - happy memories.

My Strange Connection With Canford


I lived between Boscombe and Southbourne from 1954 until 1956 and I remember some family outings in our very first car - a black Ford Prefect saloon. Trips into the Dorset countryside were exciting for me and also for my father who had never taken a driving test because he had a licence before tests were introduced! Sometimes we went through Canford and my father told me it was a wonderful boarding school.

For this ten year old it sounded attractive as I had been brought up on a diet of story books about Billy Bunter at Greyfriars School and similar schoolboy yarns. I so wanted to go to Canford School. In the event my father promised me that if I failed the scholarship for Bournemouth School for Boys then he would send me to Canford. It was probably the worst thing he could have said as it was a positve inducement to fail my exam!

As luck would have it, fate intervened. I damaged both... Read more

Memories of Dorset

Corner Shop

I used to work in the shop on the corner, there is a man standing outside the door. It was called Langer and Son.  It was then a saddler, sports and shoe shop.  I met my husband there in 1963.  We are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary this year so this picture brings back many memories.

Family Connections.

The lady standing on the bridge is my great grandmother Hannah Elton nee Churchill and the small boy her grandson, Cecil Henry Stickland, my uncle.  He became the verger at Christchurch Priory.  Hannah lived with her husband Henry, a carpenter, in the cottage to the left of the photograph just out of shot.  Hannah was the local midwife and at the time the photograph was taken her daughter Louisa Eliza had returned to her parents home for the birth of my mother, Ivy Emma Stickland.

Morris Dancing at Wimborne Folk Festival in 2007

The Square c1965
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Wimborne Folk Festival takes place every year in June - it is a glorious mixture of dancing, music and dressing up with visitors from all over England bringing their entertainment to the streets, squares and pubs of this pretty town. The festival attracts morris dancers and musicians who are delighted to perform in front of the huge crowds thronging the High Street and The Square in particular.

In almost every year since the mid 1980's the dancers from Whitethorn Morris join in the Folk Festival together with the Whitethorn Band of accordians, melodeons, fiddles and drums. Its a colourful display of red white and blue with lively music and always draws a crowd of onlookers all day long at the various venues. Fortunately many of the dance venues arranged by Brian Bisp and his Festival organizers are in front of the pubs in the High Street so refreshments are available! This year our first "spot" was in "The Square" and the photograph shown here from 1965 is... Read more

The Crown Tap

My wife was born in the crown tap in 1959 her parents i believe were the last tennants of the pub. One of the stained glass windows was on display in the priest house musem.

Whitethorn Morris at Wimborne Folk Festival - 2008

Minster, North Side 1899
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I enjoyed this 2008 Wimborne Folk Festival and consider it one of the best of the many I have performed at with Whitethorn Morris over the last 20 plus years. The Saturday procession was packed with spectators enjoying both the performers and the glorious weather - there must have been hundreds watching from the Minster Green alone!

The Festival camp site at the QE School was well looked after by the security team and the town centre streets were packed with the usual Sunday stalls run by Dorset organisations, huge crowds and around forty morris teams from miles around. There was even a Festival church service on the Minster Green shown here in this view (although the railings along the top of the stone wall have long gone!).

My own morris team - Whitethorn Morris - were well looked after by the lovely people in Wimborne Methodist Church who opened up their buildings to provide refreshments over the entire weekend. Altogether it was a... Read more

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