ONE of the most beautiful gardens in the West Country, Springhead at Fontmell Magna in North Dorset, is open over the May Day bank holiday weekend for visitors to admire the blossom. The gardens will be open on Sunday 2nd May and Monday 3rd, from 11.30am to 4.30pm. There is no charge, but donations are…
BERE Marsh Farm, the Countryside Restoration Trust’s showcase farm by the Stour near Shillingstone in Dorset, will be at the heart of a pioneering project to make the Blackmore Vale a hive of activity for bees and bee enthusiasts. Gardening clubs, schools, parish councils, allotment holders, indeed any organisation or group, will be invited to…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…