Shillingstone memories
Here are memories of Shillingstone and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Shillingstone or a Shillingstone photo.
Coronation Day in Shillingstone Plus Other Memories
I can remember Coronation Day in Shillingstone, the weather was not settled and there were showers, I can remember watching the crowning of the Queen on a TV which was in Mrs Fudge's house at the lower end of the village. In the afternoon we had a parade of fancy dress and walked to the recreation field where a fete was held, with skittles and side shows. During the evening some of the villagers went to Okeford Fitzpaine hill to look at beacons that had been lit across the Blackmore Vale.
Shillingstone folk were always ready to celebrate in style.
The parade started from the village cross, this is where as boys we would on some days buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of fizzy drink from England's the baker and sit on the cross and eat the loaf. A Mr and Mrs Mowlem lived in the cottage near the cross, it was called Maypole Cottage. Mr Mowlem's son Bob worked at Sloper's garage in the village, and... Read more
Shillingstone Station
I have always been interested in trains, and Shillingstone Station gives me some great memories.
I did not enjoy the best of health when I was young so spent a lot of my childhood down at the station, even on days when my asthma was bad, in the summer months when the line was busy I would take an old camp bed down and sleep in the signal box. When the last down train to Bournemouth had gone at 9.30 the signalmen would make a drink and then it was heads down untill 3.00am when bells started to ring, which was the first excursion from the north of England on its way to Bournemouth. I would stay there untill the last train up at 11.05 Sat evening.
They were great days of steam. The signalmen who gave me the privilege were Mr Harry Scammel and George Ainsworth.
My father Jack Newman was a lengthsman at Shillingstone and I would go fogging with him in the winter time. The porters... Read more
The Central Stores.
My parents ran the Central Stores from 1951 to 1955, their names were Tony and Eunice Jeanes. The date of c1955 is about right as this was the year that my father and mother sold the business to Mr Dean, whose sign appears in the photograph. I was two years old when my parents took over the business and my earliest childhood memories are of life in this Dorset village. It was from these premises that at the age of four years old I was taken to the isolation hospital suffering with poliomyelitis in the outbreak of 1953. I was one of the lucky ones having no long term disability as a result of contracting the disease. Central Stores was a veritable Aladdin's Cave to a young boy, full of delights...sweets, colouring books, comics, fizzy lemonade and joy of joys, ice cream in a huge chest freezer. I well remember being rescued from the cavernous interior by my father after falling in while... Read more
Second World War Welcome Home Plaques
I have lived in Shillingstone since 1977. By default I seem to have become the village archivist.
In March I was given 14 brass plaques, still in named envelopes, which were meant to be presented to individual soldiers returning to Shillingstone after the Second World War. They were produced by the Parish Council Welcome Home Committee, under the chairmanship of Bill Bailey. Research at the Dorset Records Office revealed no information about them.
Since then I have carried out extensive research to find next of kin, with the aim later this year of having a special presentation evening to hand over these plaques to the next of kin.
During my research this morning I came across this website and read several of the names I am researching. I have been in touch with Brian Newman ( a contact I found on the Frith website) and he is seeing if he can add any fresh info. Can anyone else who reads this fill in any gaps in our... Read more
Memories of Dorset
Once an Idyllic Dorset Village.
Since about the 1960s, Child Okeford became a totally different community from the one I first got to know in the early 1930's. The Watts (Harry and Dorothy) had farmed out of Laurel Farm for many decades and Jo(sephine), the daughter, was my cousin by marriage.
Laurel Farm, as it is today in the late 1900s, is shown to the left of this memory. Sadly, the main characteristics - with the exception of the thatched roof - have gone. Also gone, are the numerous attached and detached buildings and facilities, which made the place a farmhouse.
I stayed at the farm on many occasions, during the 1930s and 1940s. As I grew so did my various responsibilities on the farm - but I must say the 'unskilled' labours were my forte - I had few real farming skills. Nevertheless, my broad back and great willingness to work were a welcome addition to the everyday workforce. In particular, these physical attributes were much in use during harvesting. I could... Read more
Child Okeford in The 1940s
I remember the village in the 1940s to 1970s.
I went to school at the centre of the village till 1951 then went to Sturminster S.M school. On the walk home from school we used to go into the forge run by Alfred Wolfery (known as Bogey as he was as dirty and sooty as the bogey man!)
Across the road from the forge and Post office was Mr Fox's bakery. He would give us wonderful hot bread and iced buns. Just on down the road was Mr Hutchins the local wheelwright and undertaker, he also had a cow which he used to take out on a halter to eat from the hedges. A few more yards down on the right was Mr Fred Bradley's farm, most of the work was done by Harriet (White) who spent most of her time moving cows from farm to fields a long way from the milking sheds.
When I started school the teachers were Mrs Laurence in the infants class and Mrs Jackson... Read more
Below Hambledon
I spent my early years playing and later working in the fields in the valley between Hambledon and Shillingstone hills. At one time I worked for Mr Harry Watts and later his daughter Jo. I can remember once Harry Watts and Mr Reg Tucker were building a hay rick when the local vicar and doctor walked by, they called up to the men on the rick "could you do with a hand up there", they replied "Yes we could, but you stay down there". I can remember Mr Fred Bradly fetching his cows from the Bottom of Melway Lane, the cows knew where to go and passed several other farm gates but only went into their own yard for milking. Most people in the village collected their milk from the nearest farm to their home. The butcher Mr Turner used to kill animals in a slaughter house next to his shop in the middle of the village, and used to kill pigs at the homes of those who fattened their own pigs, we... Read more
Moons Shop
I was born in 1940 at the shop at the top of Shillingstone Rd, the Corner Stores owned by my father Guy Moon. One of my first memories is a tank pushing out the corner of the shop wall, and of the G.I's giving us chewing gum, also oranges which at that time we had never seen. We had lots of evacuees in the village, some of which never went back to their homes and married and live in the village now, a favourite joke played on these city children was, someone would send them to the Co-op for a pint of pigeons milk, they would say they were out of stock, try Mr Diffy at the other village shop, he would say the same thing and say try Mr Moon, Dad would say "It's not in yet, go and ask Farmer Bradly or Watts what time they are milking the pigeons", they would be going round the village for hours on this useless quest, not very PC today but it was... Read more
Hanford Lodge
In about 1967 my mother and father moved to this lodge after selling the Corner Store in Child Okeford. It belonged to Hanford School. It was sad to return a few years ago to find it had burned to the ground.
Opposite was one of many tracks leading to Hambledon Hill, my Father used it most days to walk his dog Gladys, if he could not go she took herself!
About half a mile further along the road to Steepleton corner on the left, are the remains of the ice house belonging to Hanford House. As children we used to use it to play in.
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