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There are several interpretations as to how the tiny Dorset hamlet of Poxwell got its name. A popular one is to do with the Black Death plague of the 14th century. However, the settlement seems to go back many hundreds of years before that.
Some say Poxwell is named after a tribesman 'Poca' who lived on the hill, the 'well' coming from the old English 'swelle' meaning hill. Others that the derivation is 'Puck's Well'. Wiki recklons the name originates from the ‘Pokes well’ – a well dating from the period when occupied by the Romans in the 1st century which is located on a hillside in the village. The hamlet is named Pocheswelle in the Domesday Book of 1086.
So take your pick! This water conduit, no longer in use, lies alongside the main road that now runs through the hamlet.
Taken on the westbound platform at Bath Spa Station, the metal signage on the bench legs seemed different and older than on other Great Western Railway benches.
Do any of the railway bods know if this is the original God's Wonderful Railway GWR design??
We are back in England but photos from our Texas visit will continue to appear, hopefully mixed in with some new photos from Dorset.
We stayed three nights in an Argosy trailer. I was not familiar with the brand but soon discovered it had many similarities to the more famous Airstream and was effectively manufactured by the same company. It was marketed as a somewhat cheaper version to the Airstream in the 1970s and 1980s.
I was delighted to find an original sales document on the inside of a cupboard. I have no idea why it wasn't filled in and returned during the purchase.
The photo for this week's "Saturday Flashback" was only taken a few weeks ago. However, it illustrates a traditional Japanese Shinto wedding, where layer after layer of clothing and ceremonial custom have literally built up over centuries. The bride is dressed in what I understand to be "shiromuku" style. She is all in white because just like in the west, white represents pureness, cleanliness, virginity. Meanwhile the groom is also in a very traditional black and white. Note how one of the attendants is bowing as the wedding party passes.
This week's Saturday Timewatch features a remote chapel built around 800 years ago in the 12th century. It is an outpost of St Nicholas church, also built in the same era, that is in the village of Worth Matravers about 2 miles distant.
The tiny chapel is still used for services around Easter and on summer Sundays.
As an aside, whilst visiting we met a chap practicing and training for his forthcoming cycle ride pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest of Spain.,
Open just four nights a week, Holman Valley Steakhouse is situated at the lonely t-junction of Farm Roads 155 and 1965, some 12 miles south of La Grange. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Locally owned and staffed, they offer classic country cooking straight out of the last century, all at a sensible price. It is genuine homemade food. Nothing fancy. Steaks, burgers, chicken fried steak or fried catfish with traditional sides such as corn or black-eyed peas. Buttermilk Pie for dessert.
No. 31806 waits at Corfe Castle. She is about to head down to Swanage in reverse. I always think it is good to see engines running along their original routes and this is the case here. To quote from Swanage Railway's website "No. 31806 used to run down to Corfe Castle and Swanage during the British Railways days of the 1950s and is the quintessential Southern Railway branch line locomotive"
Life so often gets in the way of ongoing projects. So it was nice today to spend an hour re-booting the Old and New Portland photo project.
This is just off Easton Square, Easton, Isle of Portland, dated around 120 years ago, photographer unknown. Look carefully at today's photo below and you can all the buildings are still intact, albeit updated in a variety of ways. For example, above what used to be E.Hoare's shop, a much larger upper window has been installed whilst the one next door (with the scaffolding) is currently being repaired and probably modernised.
The next shop along, with the Popular Lending Library upstairs is now an estate agency, Hull Gregson Hull, including a link with the Yorkshire Building Society. Note that unlike other properties, a stub of the old chimney has been retained.
Next along, what used to be a residential property is now Ukiyo. The front door has been moved from the centre to one side.
The last but one building in the row is very recognisable despite the modernisation. The end property has been converted from an unknown shop to residential, has lost the chimneys but has a loft window added.
Not visible in the photo but next to the end property is Foundry Close, surely an indication of previous industrial activity.
Duties : 1) Single-handed to maintain the one acre garden, paddock, greenhouse and conservatory 2) Clean knives and shoes 3) Cut wood for fires in house 4) Light boiler daily 5) Pump 500 strokes from well to fill water tank for household use and extra when guests visited 6) Store apples, pears, potatoes and onions in loft 7) Feed and slaughter when necessary the Rhode Island Red chickens and finally 8) sweep paths.
Pay and hours as described.
Another free visit during English Heritage Open week was to Thomas Hardy's house. Although it was primarily about Hardy, it was the lives of his employees, chambermaids, kitchen maids, gardener etc that really caught my attention.
The regulars might remember that we have always admired the short-lived spring blossom of a local cherry tree that we learned had a back story.....see here www.flickr.com/photos/99303089@N00/51984754383/
Now that back story has expanded! One of this week's local council candidates was delivering campaign leaflets. I immediately recognised the name 'Ross Skinner'. So instead of him 'doorstepping' me for political purposes, I doorstepped him to let him know how every year we enjoyed the cherry tree's blossom at the end of his driveway.
To cut a long story sideways, it was quite a surprise to discover in the conversation that the lady associated with the tree was also the author of several novels including "The Lighthouse Keeper" from 1965. An eBay search revealed one for sale at a reasonable price and here is the photo of the hardcover with a photo of the author shown below. I haven't got around to reading the book as yet but isn't it amazing how local village histories slowly reveal themselves bit by bit.
Today's *Saturday Flashback* is from 1974. It was taken in a small town near Tanger, Morocco.
(This is a weekly series of flashback photos. The above is scanned from a 35mm slide)
Picture this! Sometime in the late-19th century, a Victorian explorer came down from London to Dorset, probably by train, undertaking an expedition to look for fossils. Wearing plus fours, maybe even a jacket, tie and waistcoat, one day he climbed part way up the cliff at Charmouth, which is perfectly possible where the land has slumped (see second photo below). After several hours searching around Black Ven, he took lunch on site, spreading a jar of anchovy paste onto biscuits. Lunch finished, he tossed the jar away. Over 100 years later the broken lid of the jar re-appeared, jutting out of the latest mudslide at the bottom of the cliff!
Apparently these jars are not that uncommon though finding one in good condition is unusual. Sadly, I could only find this half of a lid.
This photo was taken in the loo at Middleport Pottery, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. As I understand it, although Middleport is currently being turned into a 'working museum' this artefact is still in use today because previous owners took the view that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So around what little of the works you can currently visit there are some things left that got put in decades ago and never got taken out!
I can't find any information about this particular product though the company,Keeling and Walker, still exist. Does anyone have any idea what date this would be from?
Starring in this weekend's Swanage Railway "Winter Warmer", this was our first opportunity to see and hear the sole survivor of the T3 class of locomotives. Originally entering service in March 1893 for the London and South Western Railway, 563 was the last of the class to be withdrawn from service in 1945. By that time she had covered 1.5 million miles including holiday trains from London Waterloo to Swanage.
Her 'preservation' years were convoluted. However, ending up at Swanage in 2017, serious restoration began and 6 years later, on t7th October 2023, 563 hauled her first passenger trains for the first time in three-quarters of a century.
In this photo, running tender first, 563 approaches Corfe Castle station.
Ammonites : from the sea and back to the ocean over 150 million years.
I am very far from an expert on geology or fossils. This is what I understand happened to the multitude of ammonites found along the Dorset coastline.
It began 200 million years ago when sea levels rose and transformed the Triassic desert into a shallow tropical sea. With the new marine habitats came a profusion of marine life and many of the animals living at the time are preserved as fossils. At Ringstead Bay, Dorset, it is mostly Kimmeridge Clay from the Upper Jurassic, dated by geologists as just over 150 million years old at this location.
Ammonites are an extinct group of molluscs most closely related to today’s squid, octopus and cuttlefish. Upon death, they fell to the seafloor and were gradually buried in accumulating sediment. Chemical conditions then allowed some to ‘survive’ as fossils, buried in rock for millions of years as geological conditions changed time and again.
The wheel turns full circle as Dorset’s present-day cliffs erode, eventually washing out the fossils at the shoreline. Whilst some ammonites at Ringstead are extremely robust and solid, as they are elsewhere along the coast, most at Ringstead are very fragile, such as can be seen in the photo. Once exposed they quickly return to the ocean as specks of matter.
A dastardly challenge. What is this?
Notes :
The yellow and black in the background are irrelevant.
The competition will remain open until Monday evening UK time unless someone gets the answer before then.
Yes, I do know the answer!
Saturday Timewatch features what many consider to be the golden age of rail travel in America, the 1950s. The above is a ticket cover from that era.
......it was 10 years ago today that I uploaded my first post to flickr. The photo was taken on June 18 2006 but uploaded on August 6th 2006.
The original is linked below. It didn't exactly take flickrworld by storm, with two comments and two faves and one of those was quite recent!
Apologies : The laptop screen photo is a bit dark, but heho.
Lyle's Golden Syrup has been a British staple for well over a century. The logo and contents have been unchanged for 140 years whilst the classic tins have also been an ever-present for over a century, only changing into metric some decades ago..
Personally I was horrified when a plastic squeezy version of the product appeared in more recent times but fortunately the metal tin tradition has carried on. Interesting fact : Capt. Scott took a supply of Lyle's Golden Syrup on the ill-fated Antarctica expedition of 1910. Scott's stores were rediscovered in 1956 and guess what, the tins and contents were still in good condition!
I wonder how many of you were brought up on what in my family was always known as 'treacle' and still enjoy the occasional tin?
Fancy staying in Ranters' Lodge, Chiswell, isle of Portland? You can as it is a holiday let.
I'm not sure that I really understand the history of division between different 'Methodist' sects. However, given that there are two other ex-chapels within less than a five minute walk, it seems that division was indeed very much the name of the game in the 19th century. One of the other buildings was a Primitive Methodist Chapel from 1838 and the other a Congregational Church inspired by Methodist preaching. Coming back to this building, it was used by The Ranters who followed one version of the Wesleyan tradition, apparently so named because of their rowdy preaching and singing.
You don't fancy Ranters' Lodge? Perhaps you fancy the Dead House? Not available for rent, it is the smaller building behind. Probably used for boat storage in later years, previously it was used for temporarily storing the bodies of sailors and fishermen who perished and washed up on Chesil Beach. Wiki describes "Dead House" as follows "A dead house, deadhouse or mort house, is a structure used for the temporary storage of a human corpse before burial or transportation, usually located within or near a cemetery"
But wait...there is more (see below).
Originally called Liebig's Extract of Meat and Malt Wine , Wincarnis is a 17% fortified wine, still sold, apparently tastes like a sweet sherry. The modern version no longer contains meat!!
This Saturday's look back into history goes as far as World War 2. The photo shows a surviving Type 26 pillbox along the Dorset coast. I assume it is associated with both the transmitter system shown below and a heavy anti-aircraft battery at nearby Upton Fort. This stretch of the Dorset coastline was highly strategic for several reasons, not least the presence of numerous "landing" beaches that would have been suitable for the German cross-Channel invasion that never came. This location is also within easy sight of Portland where the harbour was attacked by German bombers.
PS : I would liked to have done a "then and now" photo to replicate the image below. However, without a plane it proved to be impossible to get a decent angle.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YQomR5xJ_Y
It amazes but pleases that 44 years after the release of "The Last Picture Show" small town theatres / cinemas in America still hang on.
Desert Theatre, Burns, Oregon, is one of them. Two more are shown below.
El Nuevo Orden Mundial ha sido intentado por los dictadores con la fuerza militar. Asuntos que todo el mundo ha comprendido, y es que la fuerza militar no puede funcionar. No se puede crear una dictadura mundial con la fuerza militar.
Los Illuminatis desarrollaron un nuevo concepto para hacer posible una dictadura mundial. En lugar de forzar a los ciudadanos a adherirse a un nuevo orden mundial o una dictadura totalitaria mediante la fuerza militar es imposible porque los ciudadanos se rebelan siempre.
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La idea fue desarrollada por adam Weishaupt, -fundador de Illuminati-, de crear mucho caos, mucha violencia con el fin de atemorizar al mundo, para que los ciudadanos lleguen por si mismos a la conclusión de que hay demasiada violencia, demasiadas guerras y que la única solución posible es de crear un nuevo orden mundial.
Un nuevo Orden Mundial, formado por un gobiernmo único, un Ejército único, una sola moneda y todo sería para mejor, la paz mundial, pero es un engaño. Todo el caos creado hasta ahora ha sido dirigido con un sólo objetivo el de hacernos tener miedo y de aceptar un Nuevo Orden Mundial en el cual tendrán un control total así como una inmensa dictadura.
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Los Illuminatis, organizaron y financiaron minuciosamente las guerras, revoluciones,
y las recesiones para después poder crear un Nuevo Orden Mundial y nuevas leyes.
Es una de las más antiguas tácticas puestas en marcha.-
1.- ♥ _Operación Gladio 1 - Los Jefes De Los Anillos_♥ Con subtítulos en español. Producción original de la BBC sobre esta estructura criminal nazi de la OTAN
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2.- ♥ _Timewatch, Operación Gladio: Segunda Parte_♥ Con subtítulos en español.
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3.- ♥ _Timewatch, Operación Gladio: Tercera Parte_♥ Con subtítulos en español.
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Producciones de periodismo de investigación que contradice todas las actividades de propaganda vertidas en todos los medios de comunicación desde 1947 hasta nuestros días por los servicios de inteligencia de la alianza militar de la OTAN que ha infiltrado TODAS las instituciones judiciales, estatales de comunicación y de funcionamiento estatal con la organización político militar nazi World Anticommunist League, WACL. Organización terrorista militar nazi controlada por el último Secretario General conocido John K.- Singlaub, CIA operativo y Críminal de Guerra aún con vida jamás INVESTIGADO residente en Colorado, Estados Unidos de América.
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Video documental relacionado a CRIMENES DE GUERRA SIN AJUSTICIAR. Crímenes de guerra de la alianza militar de la OTAN con sus esbirros nazis en guerra.
VIDEO: LO QUE NO SABÍAS DE LA GUERRA SIONISTA...CLICK ON...CLICK ON
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK12q9Nvci4
CLICK ON...CLICK ON....
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Este es el verdadero TERRORISMO!!. Este es el terrorismo de la OTAN nazificadora de las relaciones mundiales
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Tal como fuere practicado por las Tropas de las calaveras de Adolf Hitler son hoy las tropas militares nazificadas de Noruega, Reino Unido, Estados Unidos de América aplaudidas por la socialdemocracia internacional las que nazifican las relaciones sociales mundiales.
Colectividad política transnacional CRIMINAL y nazificadora de las relaciones sociales humanas. Organización política colaboradora de los Proyectos Nazis Internacionales del Pentágono MK ULTRA, MK NAOMI, MK SEARCH, MK DELTA y organización que ha dedicado TODOS SUS ESFUERZOS EN ESCAPAR DE LA JUSTICIA ORDINARIA.
La socialdemocracia está conformada por falsificadores profesionales que utilizan el sistema de Naciones Unidas en función de actividad de corrupción y prestigios privados y personales. Toda la política de la socialdemocracia internacional está conformada por actividad planificada militar de IMPUNIDAD.
La socialdemocracia internacional se mofa de Naciones Unidas y se rie del sistema de justicia mundial a gritos.
Organización y colectividad política comprometida en actividades de planificación de genocidios humanos, colaborado de las actividades nazis de la OTAN, organización colaboradora de los Proyectos de destrrucción humanas y que controla el cartel del petróleo.
It is uncommon to find really good fossil specimens along our local Ringstead Beach, Dorset. These ammonite remains were the best of the bunch during a winter walk yesterday.
In the foreground, there is a nicely preserved compressed ammonite about the size of a 5 pence / 10 cent coin that is placed for comparison behind. The there is in a much larger rock full of unidentified micro fossils. Two larger fragments were also found. The partial ammonite to the right is the size of your middle finger. It was just visible jutting out from clay washed down off the cliffs during winter storms, but easy enough to carefully extract. The chunk further back is much larger again but poorly preserved. They are all approximately 150 million years old from the Jurassic era.
A very recent landslip on the cliffs at Ringstead Bay has revealed what must surely be a WW2 pillbox....or maybe not, as John has pointed out! Previously it was totally hidden by the growth of vegetation. This is a telephoto from the beach and it is far too difficult for us to venture up there to investigate further to see if there are any gun slits and where they are. There are other anti-invasion defences further down the beach but no-one we have spoken seems to know about this one.
The chances are that it will crash down onto the beach in the not-too-distant future at which point investigations will continue!.
This week's Saturday Flashback shows a postcard of Pontin's, Osmington Bay, nr Weymouth circa 1970s.
This tower is all that is left of the "old church" on Alderney. The other side has a functioning clock, and a vertical Sundial. The gravestones are all still in the yard, ut most are weathered beyond reading, The tomb in this photo can be read if you view the original size.
Funny thing is that the BBC "Timewatch" people have been on the Island documenting the Elizabethan wreck, and in one of their online videos, the presenter is standing right where I took this shot ;-) The video his HERE
Now there's old-style, old-fashioned farming but there is also sheer bloody hard work like this!
There are still many rural areas in Spain where the farming practices are more reminiscent of the UK half a century or more ago. There are small-scale, non-intensive, family-owned farms. The crops grown are highly varied, even within a single field. For example, a main crop of maize might be mixed with a patch of lettuces, a patch of potatoes or onions and an edge of vines. There seems to be little use of herbicides or pesticides and any machinary used belongs to a bygone age. Quite a bit of work is still done by hand. At least this gentleman had a petrol-driven scyth to take a hay meadow cut. The meadow was herb rich and full of wild flowers as well as the grasses, great animal feed.
About an hour later I saw that the machine had turned over on a very steep slope and was stuck in a ditch. I assume it was this man's father who had been summoned with a beat-up old Land Rover. With much swearing and gesticulating, they were trying to drag the cutter out of the ditch and get it back upright. By the end of the day, the meadow had been cut and the hay laid out to dry.
It was quite unexpected on one of our regular local 'rurex' walks (to borrow Danny's word) to discover The Watercress Company's site at Warmwell Mill had closed down and was abandoned. Rurex we did!
We are guessing, but don't know for certain, that their neighbours, a very large holiday company, made them an offer for the land that they couldn't refuse. If correct, the holiday company could expand their operations onto this site with good access, large holiday homes, a bar and restaurant building and possibly a fishing lake where the cress beds have operated for years.
There are a selection of site exploration photos below.
Richard commented on the previous post that he hoped there were instructions. There ya go!
(PS : You'll probably have to click on the photo top bring up the larger size to be able to read them)
In one image, this week's Saturday Timewatch features two classic smells from childhood - steam locomotives and carbolic soap! Interestingly, both are still readily available, at least in the UK. Steam still runs regularly, both on our numerous heritage railways and also on mainline specials. Carbolic soap can even be bought from Tesco.
Today's Saturday Flashback marks the 50th anniversary of the closure of the Atlantic Coast Express.
From 1926 to 1964 the service ran from London Waterloo to Ilfracombe, Bude, Padstow and Plymouth. It bit the dust as a result of the infamous "Beeching Axe" when the government culled numerous rail lines in the UK en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts
This week's service could not retrace the 20th century route due to those line closures. Instead it ran from London to Penzance. The first leg from London Victoria to Exeter was hauled by Tangmere 34067, a Battle of Britain class locomotive en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR_West_Country_and_Battle_of_Brita...
This photograph is from ten days ago. She was on one of her runs down from London to Weymouth, Dorset.