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Crockway
Crockway maps
Historic maps of Crockway and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Crockway maps
Crockway photos
We have no photos of Crockway, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Frampton| Frome Vauchurch| Maiden Newton| Sydling St Nicholas| Cattistock| Godmanstone| Toller Porcorum| Long Bredy| Littlebredy| Charminster| Martinstown| Litton Cheney| Powerstock| Dorchester| Evershot| Fordington| Piddletrenthide| Puncknowle| Swyre
Crockway area books
Displaying 1 of 18 books about Crockway and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Crockway
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Dorset memories
Emigrant Ancestor Baptised There Christmas Day 1773
George Coombs was born in Maiden Newton in 1773. He later took a soldier's grant of 200 acres in Ontario - where we still live.
Riversdale House, Maiden Newton
I lived here as a child of nine in 1950-1. We rented it from the owner, the delightful Sylvia Townsend Warner, author, who lived there with her partner, Valentine Ackland. The house literally stands with one wall in the river Frome. Paintings which hung about the house by "John Crask" must have had a special significance for the couple. You could sit in the library and watch the rabbits on the opposite bank and herons would sometimes come there too. There was a music room with a grand piano overlooking the river (middle of the house). In 1951 the Frome flooded, turning the house into an effective island. Today, the place looks much the same but the corrugated cladding has disappeared from the walls.
A Tiny Sketch by Judges 1958 Found in Brisbane Charity Shop
I found a delightful pair of sketches beautifully framed 16cm x 11cm - one of the subjects was a skillfully crafted sketch of the Smith's Arms at Godmanstone - almost identically as it appears in the above photo - it was a real place.
The artist signed his/her name Judges.
The second sketch is of a Dorset cottage in Cerne Abbas the year earlier.
These sketches are a window to a place in a time long ago.
School Experience
We moved from Weymouth to Kingston Russel just after have taken the 11+ exam at St. John's school.
When I started at Long Bredy school I only remember one classroom and one teacher. Hand bells and country dancing stick in my memory as things that we did there. And the teacher taught me how to build a model glider from a kit.
I was very struck by the dialect of my new school friends who used words that were like a foreign language, thick and tharn being just two.
I had a great time and ran over the hills back home when I stayed late.
Easter 1962
I was one of 14 cyclists from Sussex who descended upon Cerne Abbas on Good Friday 1962, staying until Easter Monday. We literally descended, as the route we used was to come over the hill from Piddletrenthide swooping down the narrow lane into the village. We had left Sussex that Friday morning at about 7am and arrived in Cerne at about 7pm. We were 8 blokes and 6 girls and we were booked in at the Old Cerne Union workhouse, then doing bed and breakfast, now in 2007 a rest home. Torrential rain on the Saturday didn't stop us visiting Weymouth but on Sunday, when we went to Sherborne and Sturminster Newton the sun came out to allow us to don shorts for the first time that year. But the real enjoyment came from the two evenings spent in Cerne, especially Saturday night at The Royal Oak. In 1962 the pub bar area was much smaller than today, but we crowded in there, drinking the pub dry of draught Taunton... Read more
Childhood In Powerstock And Eggardon
Powerstock was my local village from 1951 to 1963. We lived at Kings House Farm at the foot of Eggardon Hill. My father Eddie Whitaker farmed (the hill rented and his 13 acres) for 12 or so years before moving to Somerset. I have visited with my family several times over the years and stayed at the Three Horse Shoes pub on one occasion, there I met one of my peers from school and caught up on people and places from the past. These visits ignihted fond memories of the past together with periods of acute anguish as only can be felt most keenly in the childhood experience. I remember cycling to school - always late! - and flying down the steep hill from Kings spurred on by brotherly challenge not to touch the brakes until the very last bend at the bottom (Wetley). It is now obvious, with the wisdom of years, that we were preserved from harm by the grace of God, because with narrow single track roads... Read more
A Family Business
To anyone local to Dorchester this was a familiar scene day in and day out for almost 50 years. My grandfather Ben Courtney started selling 'fruit and veg' in 1947 from hand-carts on the roadside. His son Doug started in 1950 and various members of the family helped out through the week.
This picture shows my Aunt Isabel serving a regular customer with his two sons. Her father Ben is behind in his hat, serving, and her brother Doug is extreme left, carrying a box. My father (Doug Courtney) tells me his wife Joan was not at work at this time because she was expecting me to be born, in the June of that year!
Doug took over in 1960 and Trevetts worked alongside from the mid 1960s. Doug, Joan, Win, Isabel and Glad were the familiar faces that served. I did my fair share, working on busy Saturdays to ease the load. Everything was seasonal, and spring into summer brought a surge of fruit and... Read more
