Miscellany

A Dorset story of “county lines”

DORSET farmer George Streatfeild, the 2020-21 High Sheriff of Dorset, has had a short film produced to highlight the dangers of county lines drug gangs to young people in Dorset. It is the true story of ‘Sam’ (name changed) and aims to show the scale of the problem in Dorset, and to educate and improve…

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Greening the workplace

THIS year’s online Wimborne Spring Green Festival week includes an evening event on Wednesday 21st looking at what organisations can do to ‘green’ their workplaces for the benefit of staff, the general public and the environment as a whole. There is a consensus that we need to act now to make our places of work…

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Ham Hill scheme to save Shrill Carder Bee

SOUTH Somerset District Council is working with organisations including the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust to save the rare Shrill Carder bee. The council’s team at Ham Hill Country Park has started habitat management to encourage the bees to recolonise from an existing population nearby. The work is centred around the hay meadows in the flat…

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Lottery cash for Cleveland Pools project

THE Cleveland Pools Trust, which looks after Bath’s 200 year-old open-air lido, has been granted £56,300 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to assist with the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the development of the development project. The pandemic and lockdown forced the trust team to adapt to home working. Various community plans…

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Legacy funds historic barn’s restoration

A LEGACY has enabled the National Trust to restore a derelict 18th century building, Stoates Barn at Allerford on Exmoor. Local craftspeople Ware Construction had to use traditional skills, including thatching and cob construction to bring the building back to life. Dan Raymond, the Trust’s senior building surveyor said: “The works involved the careful dismantling…

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Conserving 800-year-old tiles at Lacock Abbey

THIS autumn, a National Trust team at Lacock Abbey will be working on the cleaning and conservation of more than 1,000 tiles, dating back to the Middle Ages.. Lacock’s collection of tiles contains medieval tiles, dating from the 1200s to the 1400s, and Tudor tiles, dating from the 1500s. The medieval tiles would have decorated…

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Get married at Lyme’s 125 year old theatre

OVER its 125 year history, the Marine Theatre at Lyme Regis has been at the centre of the town’s cultural and social life – plays, concerts and community events … and now weddings! For some time, couples have been hiring the seaside theatre for their wedding receptions, but the arts venue is now a fully…

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Bristol first with non-toxic textile

THE Bristol-based natural dye studio, Botanical Inks, is launching the Bristol Cloth – a textile which will be the first locally-sourced and regenerative material produced in the UK. A crowd funder raised more than £7000 in its first week, and dyeing is due to start on 20th November, with weaving beginning in January 2019. The…

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Longleat launches koala breeding programme

LONGLEAT is spearheading an international breeding and awareness-building programme for Australia’s iconic and increasingly threatened koala. Later this year the Wiltshire estate, which opened the world’s first drive-through safari outside Africa in 1966, will receive a group of up to six southern koalas from Cleland Wildlife Park in Adelaide. After spending time in quarantine the…

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New grants for South Somerset market towns

THREE South Somerset market towns will benefit from a new grants programme launched by South Somerset District Council this September. The aim of the grants is to increase the number of visitors to Chard, Crewkerne and Ilminster. Not for profit groups and organisations based in the three towns are invited to apply for grants to…

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