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unusual facts about First Hampshire & Dorset


Southampton Citybus

It was then bought by its employees, in 1997 it was purchased by First Group and is now part of First Hampshire & Dorset.


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.

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.

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.

Burh

Substantial new towns were built on flat land with a rectangular layout, at for example Oxford, Wallingford, Cricklade and Wareham.

Burton, Dorset

His Sunday school was attended by upwards of four hundred children.

Buses in Portsmouth

The group's later acquisition of Southampton Citybus and Southern National saw the companies combined to form First Hampshire & Dorset, which provides the majority of services in the city today.

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.

Cornish Riviera Express

Additional slip coaches were added to be dropped from the train on the move at various stations to serve holiday destinations such as Weymouth, Minehead, Ilfracombe, and Newquay, and the train began to run non-stop to Newton Abbot where a pilot engine was added for the climb over the Dainton and Rattery banks, the southern outliers of Dartmoor.

Daler-Rowney

The process of manufacturing is divided into 3 different sites: the colours are produced at the headquarters, in Bracknell; the brushes are manufactured in La Romana, Dominican Republic; and all paper products are transformed in Wareham, United Kingdom.

Derek Bourgeois

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

Farnham, Dorset

Following his donation of some 20,000 antiquities to the University of Oxford in 1884, forming the nucleus of the Pitt Rivers Museum, he continued to collect archaeological and ethnological specimens for his personal collection at Tollard Farnham, about a half-mile from Farnham village centre.

Ferrybridge, Dorset

It is situated within Portland, several hundred metres south of the Island's boundary with the village of Wyke Regis, Weymouth.

Flora Thompson

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

Fordington, Dorset

The will of Alfred the Great is said to make an early reference to Saint George of England, in the context of the church of Fordington, Dorset.

Haslar

Also here is Haslar Marina, which, along with Weymouth, East Cowes and Portland, is part of the Dean and Reddyhoff marina group.

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.

History of Bournemouth

Between July 1902 and April 1936, Bournemouth Corporation operated a tramway between Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and Winton.

History of Christchurch, Dorset

The Horsa, Ambassador, Mosquito, Vampire, Sea Vampire, Sea Venom and Sea Vixen were all manufactured here and in addition a number of Spitfires were converted into Seafires.

Hooke, Dorset

Rampisham Down, the hill immediately northeast of the village, is the site of a transmitter station operated by VT Communications, broadcasting long-range radio signals for clients including BBC World Service.

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.

James Herbert Benyon

Born James Herbert Fellowes, he was the son of James Fellowes of Kingston Maurward House near Dorchester, Dorset who was the youngest son of William Henry Fellowes of Ramsey Abbey in Huntingdonshire by his wife, Emma the daughter of Richard Benyon of Gidea Hall in Essex.

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.

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.

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.

Excavations by archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler in this area revealed several houses, storage pits, an area used for iron working, and a cemetery.

Milton, Dorset

The former town Milton (or Middleton) in Dorset was cleared by the local landowner, Joseph Damer, in the 1770s.

Old Higher Lighthouse

The doctor, pioneer of birth control and Portland Museum founder Marie Stopes owned the lighthouse from 1923 until her death in 1958 where over time some of her visitors included George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells and Thomas Hardy.

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.

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.

Peter Mews of Hinton Admiral

Mews bought the manors of Christchurch and Westover from the Earl of Clarendon in 1708, having previously settled in the area with his purchase of the manor of Hinton Admiral.

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.

Plush, Dorset

Plush consists of a few thatched cottages, a public house, a Regency manor house and a small church dedicated to St John the Baptist; the church was designed in 1848 by Benjamin Ferrey, a Gothic Revival architect and close friend of Pugin.

Robert de Neubourg

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

Robert Symonette

He also won silver at three World Championships in 1962 in Poole, Dorset, England, in 1973 in Lysekil, Sweden and in 1977 at Bénodet, France.

Sandsfoot Castle

Sandsfoot Castle is one of Henry VIII's Device Forts, also known as Henrician Castles, built around 1541 to the west of Weymouth, Dorset, England, opposite its contemporary Portland Castle.

Telegraph Hill, Dorset

The area of Minterne, Dogbury Hill and High Stoy was the setting for Thomas Hardy's novel, The Woodlanders, Minterne House being referred to as Great Hintock House.

Warburton Pike

Pike was born in Wareham, Dorset in 1861 and he committed suicide in the sea at Bournemouth (UK) in 1915 after being refused entry into the army.

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.

Westbourne, Dorset

Until it was closed in 1965, Westbourne had a train station known as Bournemouth West Station Terminus.

Florence Nightingale had an interest in Westbourne when in 1867 she was a prime mover in the building of the Herbert Home Hospital.

Winterborne Kingston

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

Winton, Dorset

It was one of the first public libraries in the country to allow open access to the shelves; and it was here that Flora Thompson read the literature on which she based her literary career culminating in her autobiographical trilogy Lark Rise to Candleford.

Wool, Dorset

It has a stone halfway along it stating that those who deface or damage the bridge will be transported (sent to Australia or another penal colony) for the rest of their lives.

Woolbridge Manor House, a 14th-century building, is a prominent feature just outside the village and the location of Tess's honeymoon in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles.


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