X-Nico

95 unusual facts about Dorset


Adam Ayles

Ayles was born of an unmarried mother at Marnhull, Dorset.

Alexander Faludy

The son of two teachers from Portsmouth, in 1995 Faludy gained a scholarship to Milton Abbey School, a boarding school in Dorset where one third of the children are dyslexic, after being bullied at his county school in Portsmouth.

Alfred Chicken

Karl Fitzhugh, the Product Manager of the Amiga version of the Alfred Chicken video game, ran as the Alfred Chicken Party candidate in the 1993 by-election in the Christchurch, Dorset constituency.

Alfred Douglas-Hamilton, 13th Duke of Hamilton

Hamilton died shortly after his 78th birthday, on 16 March 1940 at the family's property in Dorset, Ferne House.

Alfred Seymour

Alfred Seymour of Knoyle House, Wiltshire, and of Trent MP, JP (11 November 1824 – 15 March 1888) was a British Liberal Party politician.

Alice Lisle

Dame Alice was a daughter of Sir White Beconshaw of Moyles Court at Ellingham in Hampshire and his wife, Edith Bond, daughter and co-heiress of William Bond of Blackmanston in Steeple in Dorset.

Andrew Simmons

In May, Simmons defeated Tommy Stevens in a Tables Match to win a one night tournament for the EWF trophy at the Weymouth Pavilion in Weymouth, Dorset.

On 16 November 2010, Simmons competed in a Championship Tournament for Fightstar Sports Entertainment's vacant All-Counties Championship at the Barrington Centre in Ferndown, Dorset.

Arthur H. Clark

Clark was born in Blandford Forum, Dorset, in the United Kingdom, and migrated to Australia with his family in 1963.

Ælfhere, Ealdorman of Mercia

The reign of Edward came to an end with his murder at Corfe Castle on 18 March 978.

Battle of Marton

One possible location for the battle is at Merriton, on the banks of the River Stour, a few miles downstream of Wimborne, thus providing a simple journey by barge with the body of King Æthelred.

Beatrice De Cardi

De Cardi received her earliest training as an assistant at the digs conducted by Sir Mortimer Wheeler at the Iron Age fort of Maiden Castle in southern England.

Bournemouth Collegiate School

The prep school (ages 2-11) is located at Poole and the senior school (ages 11-18) is located in the Bournemouth suburb of Southbourne.

Bournemouth Little Theatre club

The club stages 6 to 8 productions (dramas, thrillers, comedies, and farces) a year, and is the only local group with its own dedicated premises on Jameson Road in Winton, Bournemouth.

Catherine Fillol

Catherine Fillol (or Filliol) (c. 1507 - c.1535) was the daughter and co-heiress of Sir William Fillol (1453 - 9 July 1527), of Woodlands, Horton, Dorset, and of Fillol's Hall, Essex.

Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay

By 1830 he had purchased much of the eastern end of the estate, at Highcliffe, Dorset.

Charles Thomas Beer

Born in Leigh, Dorset, England, he received a D.Phil in Chemistry from Oxford in 1948.

Charlton Marshall

It is sited on a river terrace above the floodplain of the River Stour, with most of the land in the parish stretching south-west over chalk hills.

Christchurch station

Christchurch railway station, Dorset, a railway station in Christchuch, Dorset, United Kingdom

Coburg, Victoria

It was named after the birthplace of Foot's wife: Pentridge, Dorset, England.

Colehill

The River Stour would have been navigable and there is evidence that in about 500 BC peoples from Continental Europe were populating the South West, bringing with them the culture of the early Iron Age.

Compton Acres

Many of the streets are named after areas in Dorset, such as Blanford Gardens - named after the famous gardens in Dorset - or after trees, such as Redwood and Acorn Bank.

Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation

CYTO was founded in 1965, following a visit by Marjorie Taylor, a Youth Service officer for Croydon Council, to the Youth Theatre at Southbourne in Dorset.

Custos Rotulorum of Dorset

This is a list of people who have served as Custos Rotulorum of Dorset.

Derek Bourgeois

Derek Bourgeois is married, and currently lives in Wool, Dorset, with his second wife, Norma.

Dorset, Minnesota

Dorset is an unincorporated community in Henrietta Township, Hubbard County, Minnesota, United States.

Earl of Ilchester

His nephew, the fifth Earl, was Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms from 1873 to 1874 in the Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone and also served as Lord Lieutenant of Dorset from 1885 to 1905.

Edmondsham

It is sited near the source of a small stream which flows into the River Allen.

Edmund Morison Wimperis

Edmund Morison Wimperis (6 February 1835 Flocker's Brook, Chester - 25 December 1900 Southbourne, Christchurch, Hampshire), was an English wood-engraver and watercolour painter and member of The Arts Club.

Edward Chamier

Edward Chamier (3 September 1840, Weymouth – 12 August 1892, Paris) was a French chess master.

Elizabeth Prentiss

The family eventually settled in Dorset, Vermont, where Elizabeth would die in 1878 at the age of 59.

Epic Horse

At the time Holmes "had just been on vacation in the English county of Dorset where my imagination had latched on to tales of smugglers and wreckers and beautiful hills overlooking long stretches of stony beach".

Eric Douglas Saumarez, 7th Baron de Saumarez

Eric Douglas Saumarez, 7th Baron de Saumarez was educated at Milton Abbey School, Milton Abbas, Dorset, England.

Ffridd Faldwyn, Montgomery

This was following the most recent excavation practices developed by Mortimer Wheeler for his excavations at the hillfort at Maiden Castle in Dorset.

Flora Thompson

Flora benefited from good access to books when the public library opened in Winton, in 1907.

Frederick Mitchell Hodgson

Hodgson was the son of the Reverend Octavius Arthur Hodgson, Rector of East Stoke, Dorset, England.

Giles Green

Green was of Allington, Dorset, but moved to Dorchester on 24 September 1634 because of his own and his wife's sickness.

Gladys Colton

Colton was a schoolmistress at Slepe Hall, St Ives, from 1932 to 1937, then taught at Beaminster Grammar School in Dorset from 1937 to 1941, when she was appointed as senior history mistress at Ealing Grammar School for Girls.

Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve

The craters are named for Henbury Station, a nearby cattle station named in 1875 for the family home of its founders at Henbury in Dorset, England.

Henbury Station

The area was initially settled by Parkes and Walker in 1875 who had applied for the lease and then named it after there hometown in England.

Jack Clemo

However it was not until he reached his early 50s when he met and subsequently married Ruth Peaty in 1968, who came from Weymouth.

Janine Wood

Janine Wood (born 30 December 1963 in Bournemouth, Dorset, England) is a British actress.

Jim Kincaid

Three D-Day veterans from the Norfolk area accompanied Jim to several historic World War II sites, including Weymouth, England, Omaha Beach, Bastogne, the Dachau concentration camp, and Margraten in the Netherlands, site of the largest American cemetery in Europe.

Jo Burt

Burt continues to write music and now lives in Dorset with his wife, Antonia (a soprano), and together they perform regularly in London and elsewhere in the UK as The Jo Burt Experience.

John Calcraft

In 1757 Calcraft purchased an estate at Rempstone on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, which gave him an interest in three nearby parliamentary boroughs, Corfe Castle, Poole and Wareham.

John Calcraft the elder (1726 – 23 August 1772), of Rempstone in Dorset and Ingress in Kent, was an English army agent and politician.

John Cannan

Court was last seen by a taxi driver who dropped her in Throop, Dorset at her sister's house.

John J. Jenkins

Born in Weymouth, England, Jenkins emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1852, where they settled in Baraboo, Wisconsin.

John Jestyn Llewellin, 1st Baron Llewellin

Llewellin lost his seat in the election and was raised to the peerage as Baron Llewellin, of Upton in the County of Dorset.

Jon Lawes

Jon Lawes MRAeS is a Motoring Author and Aviation Engineer, who lives in Dorset, UK.

Juliette Kaplan

Juliette Kaplan (born 1939 in Bournemouth, Dorset, England) is a British actress, real (married) name Marlene Hoser.

Kit Berry

Kit lived in Weymouth in Dorset for many years, where she studied for her first degree in English and Media Studies at Weymouth College.

Knowlton, Dorset

The site of the ancient village of Knowlton (as opposed to the present day hamlet) is located 500 metres west of Knowlton Church along Lumber Lane at the banks of the River Allen.

Lulworthiaceae

The type genus Lulworthia was originally described in 1916 by George Kenneth Sutherland to contain the species Lulworthia fucicola, a fungus found on the seaweed commonly known as the bladder wrack at Lulworth on the coast of Dorset, UK.

Marquess of Bath

The Marquess holds the subsidiary titles Baron Thynne, of Warminster in the County of Wilts, and Viscount Weymouth, in the County of Dorset, created in 1682 in the Peerage of England.

Melleray Abbey

Through the generosity of Sir Thomas Weld, a wealthy English Catholic and the father of Cardinal Weld, they settled (1795) at Lulworth, Dorset, England.

Michael Pitt-Rivers

Pitt-Rivers spent much of his wealth on a lifetime of travel, financed by selling the most productive land from the Rushmore estate he inherited in Dorset.

Middlebere Plateway

Initially the railway served clay pits to the east side of the road from Wareham to Corfe Castle, but shortly thereafter it was extended under the road to serve clay workings on the other side of the road.

Mizmaze

Mizmaze (or Miz-Maze or Miz Maze) is the name given to two of England's eight surviving historic turf mazes, and also to a third, presumably once similar site (at Leigh in Dorset) that is now merely a relic .

Ontario Highway 117

In 1974, a second iteration of Highway 117 was assumed through Muskoka, connecting Highway 11 near Bracebridge with Highway 35 in Dorset.

Orange-spotted Emerald

This species has only ever known from two areas in southern England, one around the River Stour and Moors River in east Dorset, where the species was recorded from 1820 to 1963, and the other on the River Tamar in Devon where the species was recorded in 1946 only.

Paramelania damoni

--there exist two malacologist named Damon--> from Weymouth, who collected the type specimen.

Penelope Hobhouse

Known still as Penelope Hobhouse, she then lived in Bettiscombe, Dorset.

Percy F. Westerman

He lived on board a houseboat – a converted Thames barge – on the River Frome at Wareham in Dorset, where he wrote the majority of his books.

Perophora japonica

Two years later it was reported eighty miles further east in the Fleet, Dorset and in another two years it was present in Guernsey.

Philip Thomas Godsal

In 1879 Godsal married Ellen Henrietta Parke who was daughter of Charles Joseph Parke of Henbury, Dorset, and grand daughter of Charles Parke, formerly H.B.M Commissioner to the kingdom of Mexico and Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset.

Phoenix breakwaters

Several Phoenix breakwaters are still in use in Britain: two are part of the harbour off Castletown at Portland Harbour and two can be dived in less than 10 metres of water off Pagham.

RAF Christchurch

RAF Christchurch is a former Royal Air Force installation and was located southeast of the A337/B3059 junction in Somerford, Christchurch, Dorset, England.

Robert de Neubourg

Roger was responsible for the relocation of Bindon Abbey to Wool.

Royal Signals Motorcycle Display Team

The team is based at the home of the Royal Signals at Blandford Camp in Dorset.

Sarah Harris

She also played the title role in independent short film Ellie Goes to the Movies 2005 which was screened at the 'Dorset Arts Festival' and the 'Tromafling' in Edinburgh.

Sir Robert Munro, 6th Baronet

His marriage to a member of a great English family — Mary, daughter of Henry Seymour of Woodlands in Dorset — took place in London in 1716, and the romantic story of a courtship interrupted by the purloining of their letters has been preserved by tradition.

Stephen Lewin

Stephen Lewin of Poole, Dorset, England was a builder of steamboats and steam locomotives.

Stephen Simpson

Stephen was born on 8 January 1984 in Poole, Dorset, England and he moved to South Africa with his family when he was 10 months old.

Steven Karidoyanes

He holds a Bachelor of Music Degree from Boston University and received training in orchestral conducting at the Canford School of Music in Dorset, England, where he studied with the renowned British conducting coach, George Hurst.

Stickland

The family surname of Stickland is West Saxon (Wessex) in origin and comes from the English county of Dorset.

The Curragh of Kildare

The song has also been collected in Scotland and even in England; the singer Frank Purslow collected a version (The Winter's Gone and Past) in Dorset.

The Grange School, Christchurch

The school is sited in Somerford & takes pupils from the Somerford, Mudeford & Burton areas.

Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle

He was twice High Sheriff of Dorset and Somerset (1531), was keeper of the royal parks in Dorset, and in 1539 sat on the Council of the West with his father.

He was elected Member of Parliament for Dorset in 1545 and 1547.

Both his cousin, Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, and Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, employed Arundell in the management of their estates.

Thomas Gerrard

Foxe says that he had intended to take a curacy in Dorset under a false name, but gave up the plan, and was at Reading some time in 1527, selling many of his books to the prior there.

Trent River

River Piddle, in Dorset, UK, sometimes archaically referred to as the Trent

Tryphena Sparks

Tryphena Sparks (20 March 1851 - 17 March 1890), born in Puddletown, Dorset, the youngest child of James and Maria Sparks, was Thomas Hardy's cousin and possible lover.

Twynham

Twynham was the original name of Christchurch, Dorset, in England, which called Twynham until the end of the eleventh century.

Vermont Route 7A

Here, VT 7A intersects VT 11 and briefly overlaps VT 30 before exiting the village and entering the town of Dorset, where the route ends at another junction with US 7.

Viking Apocalypse

The show examines the Ridgeway Hill Viking burial pit in Weymouth, UK, a site of a suspected mass execution long ago.

Walter E. Freed

In 1979 Freed settled in Dorset and became President of Apollo Industries, a petroleum marketer which operates gasoline stations and convenience stores in several states.

Warren Hill

Warren Hill, Christchurch, Dorset (21 m), important archaeological site and nature reserve on Hengistbury Head, Christchurch.

We Laughed

The music of the tracks were written by Bragg whilst three patients of Trimar Hospice in Weymouth wrote lyrics based on their illness and feelings.

Wilfred Parke

He was the grandson of Charles Joseph Parke of Henbury in Dorset a former High Sheriff of the county and was a great nephew of General William Parke as well as being great great grandson of the Reverend Charles Wickstead Ethelston who read the riot act at the Peterloo riots and signed the arrest for the speakers.

Wimborne St Giles

Wimborne St Giles is a hundred and parish located in the wooded valley of the River Allen, near the royal hunting ground of Cranborne Chase.

Wingerworth Hall

This format of design was typical of the rare late English Baroque, and can be seen in a less sophisticated form at Sherborne House in Dorset and in its full fruition at Chatsworth and Easton Neston.

Winterborne Houghton

To the east is Winterborne Stickland and the river flows on to this village, eventually joining the River Stour.

Winterborne Kingston

The River Winterborne which flows through the village is a tributary of the River Stour.


303rd Military Intelligence Battalion

Commanded by Captain Emory L. Jones, the 3253rd trained until 8 June at Wincham Hall, Cheshire and then moved to quarters at Burton Bradstock, Dorset.

Amelia Sach and Annie Walters

Little is known about Annie Walters, but Sach's background is well-documented: Amelia Sach was baptised Frances Amelia Thorne in Hampreston, Dorset, on 5 May 1867.

Angels We Have Heard on High

The carol quickly became popular in the West Country, where it was described as 'Cornish' by R.R. Chope, and featured in Pickard-Cambridge's Collection of Dorset Carols.

Anti Piracy Maritime Security Solutions

Anti Piracy Maritime Security Solutions (APMSS) of Poole, Dorset, England is a British company established in 2008.

Baron Alington

He was the son of Henry Sturt, great-grandson of Humphrey Sturt by his wife Diana (through which marriage Crichel House in Dorset came into the Sturt family), daughter of Sir Nathaniel Napier, 3rd Baronet, and the Honourable Catherine, daughter of the third Baron of the 1642 creation.

Battle of Marton

The Battle of Marton or Meretum took place on 22 March 871 at a place recorded as Marton, perhaps in Wiltshire or Dorset, after Æthelred of Wessex, forced (along with his brother Alfred) into flight following their costly victory against an army of Danish invaders at the Battle of Ashdown, had retreated to Basing (in Hampshire), where he was again defeated by the forces of Ivar the Boneless.

Bertie Bolton

Bolton's final game for Dorset came in 1912 against Devon.

Brian Shantry

Shantry played 13 Minor Counties matches for Dorset, with his final match for the county coming against Cornwall in 1985.

British NVC community OV16

It is found in southern and eastern England, from Dorset and Wiltshire to Lincolnshire.

Centre Point

The precast segments were formed of fine concrete utilising crushed Portland Stone and were made by Portcrete Limited at Portland,Isle of PortlandPortland Dorset.

Chronicles of Barsetshire

The Chronicles of Barsetshire (or, in more recent UK usage, the Barchester Chronicles) is a series of six novels by the English author Anthony Trollope, set in the fictitious English county of Barsetshire (located approximately where the real Dorset lies) and its cathedral town of Barchester.

Coroniceras

Fossils of Coroniceras bucklandi are commonly found at Lyme Regis, Dorset Coast, England in the higher limestones of the Blue Lias.

Defence College of Communications and Information Systems

The College consists of a headquarters based at Blandford Camp in Dorset, the Royal Navy CIS Training Unit at HMS Collingwood, Fareham, Hampshire, The Royal School of Signals at Blandford Camp and the Royal Air Force Number 1 Radio School, collocated with the headquarters of the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering at Cosford, of which the Aerial Erector School at RAF Digby is a part.

Dorset Opera Festival

Dorset Opera Festival is an annual country house opera festival combining amateur and professional performers, which takes place at Bryanston near Blandford Forum in Dorset, England.

Fiddleford

In the hamlet there is also the beautiful mill and weir and the Fiddleford Manor, one of the oldest buildings in Dorset, probably dating from around 1370 and built by William Latimer, Royal Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset.

Henry Cuttance

Henry Cuttance, born in Melcombe Regis, Dorset, was son of Sir Roger Cuttance, Edward Montagu’s flag captain in the Naseby, in 1660.

Hinton Admiral railway station

Hinton Admiral railway station is a station serving the villages of Bransgore and Hinton and the town of Highcliffe on the Hampshire/Dorset border in southern England.

Homeshare

With the support of Oliver Letwin MP and the art historian Anthony Russell, NAAPS is currently pushing for the introduction of Homeshare to Dorset.

John Jeffreys

J. G. Jeffreys (born 1893), Australian schoolteacher who moved to England and founded Bryanston School in Dorset

Maiden Castle, Dorset

This was a characteristic of Vespasian's campaign in the region; there was military occupation at Cadbury Castle in Somerset, Hembury in Devon, and Hodd Hill in Dorset.

Marble Hill House

but more commonly thereafter, and provided a standard model for the English villas built throughout the Thames Valley and further afield, for example New Place, King's Nympton, Devon, built between 1746–9 to the design of Francis Cartwright of Blandford in Dorset.

Nigel Dempster

The son of an Australian mining engineer, who was fifty when Dempster was born, and an English mother, he was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset.

Oliver Letwin

He stood at the 1987 election for Hackney North, and again unsuccessfully stood against Glenda Jackson for the Hampstead and Highgate seat in the 1992 election, before winning the West Dorset seat in 1997, by the narrow margin of 1,840 votes.

Peter Mews

Mews was born at Caundle Purse in Dorset, and was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, London, and at St John's College, Oxford, of which he was scholar and fellow.

Phil K

Shpongle - "Dorset Perception" (Lo-Step's Balearic Breaks Re-Edit)

Robert George Gammage

He stopped briefly in Harrogate, where he had an introduction from his employer in Sherbourne to a coach trimmer who had moved there from Dorset, and he finally arrived in Newcastle in September 1842.

Sir James Creed Meredith

The Creeds had lived near Kilmallock, at Ballygrennan Castle, since the 17th century, but Mrs Meredith's uncle, William Creed, divided up the land after his only daughter, Mrs Eliza Bowyer Bower, removed with her husband to Iwerne Minster, Dorset.

Solomon Caesar Malan

After serving various curacies, he was presented in 1845 to the living of Broadwindsor, Dorset, which he held until 1886 During this entire period he continued to augment his linguistic knowledge; he was able to preach in Georgian, on a visit which he paid to Nineveh in 1872.

The Skull Beneath the Skin

Cordelia Gray is engaged by Sir George Ralston, a baronet and World War II hero, to accompany his wife, the acclaimed actress Clarissa Lisle, for a weekend at Courcy Castle on the island of the same name on the Dorset coast.

Thérèse Bermingham

In 2007, Bermingham attended the 21st World Scout Jamboree and joined 350 young people-a boy and a girl from almost every country-for a sunrise ceremony at Brownsea Island, off the coast of Dorset to mark the centenary of Scouting.

Thomas Bickley

Returning to England after the accession of Elizabeth I, he enjoyed rapid promotion, being made, within ten years, chaplain to Archbishop Matthew Parker, rector of Biddenden in Kent, of Sutton Waldron in Dorset, archdeacon of Stafford, chancellor in Lichfield Cathedral, and Warden of Merton College, Oxford.

Thomas Billingsley

According to John Aubrey, Billingsley taught Dorset and his retinue of 30 gentlemen to 'ride the Great Horse.

Tuberville

In Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles, the D'Urberville family was based on the now extinct Tuberville Family of Bere Regis in Dorset

Weymouth and Portland

The current MP for South Dorset is Richard Drax, a member of the Conservative Party, who was voted in during the 2010 General Election, beating the incumbent Labour MP Jim Knight.

Winterfold House

He settled in Britain, taking a lease at favourable rates on Upton House at Poole, Dorset in 1961, but there were endless financial problems, and threats of eviction.