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Sutton Waldron
Sutton Waldron photos
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Sutton Waldron maps
Historic maps of Sutton Waldron and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Sutton Waldron maps
Sutton Waldron area books
Displaying 1 of 18 books about Sutton Waldron and the local area. View all books for this area
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Memories of Sutton Waldron
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Dorset memories
The Mount
My great aunt Emilly Still lived in the bungalow in the background and we as children spent many happy summer holidays in Fontmell Magna. She and Tom (who I never knew) are buried in the church graveyard.
I remember travelling from our home in Kent to Fontmell in the winter of 1963 during the worst snow storms in living memory to help my mother's aunt.
If anyone reads this I would love to find out more about Tom and Emily. I have visited Fontmell in recent years to put flowers on the grave.
A Boarding School Second to None
What a dump Iwerne Minster was to a school boy of the 60's sent from London to that boarding school in the middle of nowhere. The locals spoke in a strange unintelligible dialect, the air was sometime thick with the stink of manure, and you had to be 14 to buy beer from the off-licence at Tarrant Hinton! Now, 50+ years on, it doesn't seem such a bad place at all. In fact, its quite nice down there. The beer is not so bad after all.
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.
