Throughout last week, I had people who I didn’t know from the local area following me on Twitter and adding me on Facebook. Many of them commented expressing their praise for the video. To date, the video on YouTube has had about 75 comments (and the same number of replies by me), 206 likes and 2 dislikes – a comment reading “Two dislikes for this video? The pair of you: YOU ARE DEAD INSIDE” made me chuckle.

Interest has died down at the moment. A few people have quietly complained about how much I was mouthing off about it, so I haven’t been sharing it around so much. But the other night, ITV West Country Tonight came to West Bay and filmed me for a piece they are running. And this Saturday, the film is being shown at the Bridport Arts Centre as part of a Spirit of Bridport event.

My target number of views for the video is 12,977 (which is Wikipedia‘s listed population for Bridport). It should soon surpass that. I already have plans to make a second, improved version of the video. Difficult second album?

Thomas Hardy mentions this tree (although he calls it Bockhampton Sweet) in one of his novels.

Claire Tomalin, on page 19 of my copy of her biography of Thomas Hardy, says: ‘He was in charge of the garden, growing fruit and vegetables – carrots, onions, parsnips, broad beans and potatoes; in the autumn there would be Gascoyne Scarlets, Golden Pippins and Bockhampton Sweets on their apple trees and cider to be made.’

She got this information from  a book called Hardyana by J Stevens Cox 1964. She also quotes from a letter written by Mary Hardy listing vegetables growing which is to be found in the Museum H.1975.316.22.

The Bockhampton Scarlet was listed in the RHS Journal No.25 as exhibited in 1900 but there are no further records and I can’t find it listed in the Brogdale collections. There is one listed in 1904 as Bockhampton Beauty but no recent records.

My plan is to start a small cider orchard. It would be wonderful to find this tree and even more wonderful if it happened to be growing locally in Dorset.

The National Apple Register describes it as: Size, large; Shape, intermediate to flat, truncate-conic; Skin, yellow-green flushed deep red; flesh soft, yellowish; Flavour, subacid [good dessert]; Season, very late [February onwards].

If anyone knows anything at all about it please would you contact me.

Ruth Whitty works in Green Skills & Garden Industries at Kingston Maurward College near Dorchester and is the co-ordinator for ‘Apple Day’.

Tel: 01305 215183

Email: ruth.whitty@kmc.ac.uk

Editor’s Note: Ruth said to me: “I thought how lovely it would be to find out it was still growing round here. Apple trees live for more than 100 years, so it’s possible.

“It might just be spotted somewhere, with the leaves now falling, and with this particular apple staying on trees so late. It might be visible.”

It’s not a variety that was spotted during all the research that was done into Dorset’s cider history by Liz Copas and Nick Poole, but who knows? Liz and Nick re-discovered 20 ‘lost’ Dorset varieties of cider apple; there might still somewhere be one more.

As for the question of whether there was ever ‘a Dorset cider’ see the video above with Nick Poole, founder of the West Milton Cider Club, supremo of Powerstock Cider Festival, and maker of West Dorset Real Cider.

A companion video with Liz Copas can be seen by clicking on this link: ‘Was there ever a Dorset cider, part 2?’

Ms Dean is involved with the Road for the Future project, which has been set up to look at ideas about the countryside, transport and access.

As Powerstock Hut is not itself the most easily accessible place in the world, especially on a Sunday afternoon, a free minibus will run from Bridport to Powerstock (and back again).

Passengers are promised “a special intervention” by Ms Dean to entertain them during the journey.

The minibus will leave the Nationwide bus stop, West Street, Bridport at 4.00pm sharp on Sunday, November 27, and the return trip will arrive back in Bridport by 7.45pm. Seats are bookable on a first come, first served basis.  Anyone interested is advised to book early with project manager Jo Morland on 01305 860461 or via joanna@jomorland.f9.co.uk.

According to Ms Morland: “Judith responds to different contexts using a wide range of media, including sculpture, installation, video and performance. She’s particularly interested in ideas of territory and claiming, and is often concerned with questions of behaviour, including her own. Judith will be showing images of recent projects and discussing their relevance to her work for Powerstock Common.”

Road for the Future is a year-long project offering artists’ residencies and commissions and educational workshops on the disused railway line between Maiden Newton and Bridport.

Sustrans is working to develop the route as a multi-use Trailway.

Powerstock Common nature reserve, long-leased by Dorset Wildlife Trust, is at the centre of the Trailway and is the focus for these collaborations between artists, educators, architects, makers and the community.

Road for the Future continues until May 2012.  Its first event was a residency by the Energy Café on Powerstock Common in April 2011, offering lunches using foraged and local produced ingredients. The Energy Cafe can be seen in the video above by John Holman of Transition Vision TV, the online TV service for Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire.

New artworks made in response to different aspects of Powerstock Common will be shown to the public during April or May 2012.

Project partners are Dorset Wildlife Trust, Sustrans, the Architectural Association at Hooke Park, PVA MediaLab and Treewise Co-op.

Road for the Future is funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, West Dorset District Council, Artsway Associates and The Dorset Design and Heritage Forum.

For further information contact Anna Best, 07810 374745, me@annabest.info

Brian Wood at Palmers Brewery in Bridport. His lorry has done more than 1.5 million miles. Above Brian's head is the trapdoor that leads though into Palmers' malt loft.

THIRTY years ago one of the unsung heroes of British brewing began criss-crossing the country with sacks of malt.

Brian Wood started carrying malt for Hugh Baird and Sons at Station Maltings in Witham in Essex in the Autumn of 1981. When Baird’s got taken over in the mid-1990s, he set up on his own.

I’ve met him a couple of times at Palmers Brewery in Bridport, where he’s been delivering malt since the early 1980s.

He’s a fine man, as I hope comes through in the video that I made about him for the Palmers Brewery YouTube channel.

Here, also, is a link to a story written about Brian Wood and Palmers.

What that story doesn’t contain is a list of all the UK breweries that Brian has been to.

It’s an evocative litany, so here it is. Fifty-nine different brewers, 63 separate breweries, some of them now shut for many years. Morrells’ Lion Brewery, for example, was converted into ‘luxury apartments’. Julia Hanson’s in Dudley was knocked down to make way for a Netto supermarket, turned this summer into an Asda.

• Whitbread (Sheffield, Cheltenham, Salford)
• Boddingtons (Manchester)
• Joseph Holt (Manchester)
• JW Lees (Manchester)
• Timothy Taylor (Keighley)
• Samuel Smith (Tadcaster)
• Bass (Burton)
• McMullens (Hertford)
• Julia Hanson (Dudley)
• Banks (Wolverhampton)
• Hardy Hanson (Kimberley)
• Brains (Cardiff)
• Buckleys (Llanelli)
• Felinfoel (Dyfed)
• Wadworth (Devizes)
• Hall & Woodhouse (Blandford)
• Palmers Brewery (Bridport)
• Otter Brewery (Blackdown Hills)
• Butcombe (Blagdon)
• Smiles (Bristol)
• Hook Norton (Oxon)
• Morrells (Oxford)
• Fullers (Chiswick )
• Tring (Hertford)
• Adnams (Southwold)
• Tolly’s (Ipswich)
• Harveys (Lewes)
• Hepworths (Horsham)
• King & Barnes (Horsham)
• Hull Brewery
• Batemans (Wainfleet)
• Robinsons (Stockport))
• Thwaites (Blackburn)
• Jennings (Cockermouth)
• Moorhouse (Burnley)
• Higsons (Liverpool)
• Burtonwood Brewery
• Everards (Leicester and Burton on Trent)
• Marstons (Burton on Trent)
• Ind Coope (Burton on Trent)
• Castlemaine (Wrexham)
• Oldham Brewery
• Hart Brewery (Preston)
• Mitchells (Lancaster)
• Vaux (Sunderland & Sheffield)
• Federation (Newcastle)
• Courage (Bristol & Reading)
• Crouch Brewery (Essex)
• Gales (Horndean)
• Devenish (Redruth)
• St Austell (Cornwall)
• Halls (Oxford)
• Tisbury Brewery (Wiltshire)
• Ringwood Brewery (Hampshire)
• Shepherd Neame (Faversham)
• Trough Brewery (Idle)
• Brakspears (Henley on Thames)
• Pilgrim (Reigate)
• Mendip Brewery (Somerset)

Imagine going to the Trough Brewery at Idle for the first time! And seeing this, when you got there.

Nowadays Brian delivers mostly to Palmers in Dorset, Arkell’s in Swindon, Felinfoel near Llanelli, Harveys in Lewes, Elgood’s in Wisbech, Wadworth in Devizes and Fuller’s in Chiswick.

Good reason, I’d say, to favour those seven brewers.

Chesil Beach, Dorset, looking towards the Isle of Portland - and roaring towards London. Photograph by Nigel Mykura, reused under Creative Commons Licence.

SO JUST where would you expect to hear the sound of waves crashing on stones along the Chesil Beach?

As questions go that might sound fairly daft. But there are two answers.

The one that might not immediately spring to the minds of Dorset residents is London’s Euston Road.

Yes, “the mighty roar of London’s traffic” is to be drowned out by the crashing of Dorset surf.

It is all the idea and work of one Bill Fontana, a ‘sound artist’. He has made a series of recordings of the incoming tide along the beach. He will then mix and edit these to be played through a series of speakers mounted on the building of the Wellcome Foundation in one of London’s busiest and noisiest thoroughfares.

This “experiment in perception” will show that “most people don’t pay any attention to the sounds around them,” explains Fontana. Who goes on to tell us that “to change the context in which you hear something, you change the meaning of it“.

Well, I would never argue with that – even if I understood it.

I suppose he might even consider the alternative.

Why not a string of speakers stretching from West Bexington to Portland carrying the sounds of heavy lorries rumbling, car horns tooting and motor bikes revving in a busy London street?

No, that would be silly!

Editor’s Note: The video is embedded – with thanks for making and sharing it – from WiredVideoUk’s channel on YouTube.

I was privileged to shoot an interview with him at Eype on the Dorset coast about his involvement with the Symondsbury Mummers – how the tradition was revived in 1950 and particularly about the film of the Mummers made by the late Peter Kennedy in 1952.

Bill was simply brilliant company and to meet him was to feel that you had known him for years: a very special person to many, many people.

“Singing the Travels” – the song associated with the Symondsbury Mummers – is played on melodeon by the late Peter Kennedy.

This material is drawn from the Trilith production, “Walk in Room”.

Editor’s Note: John Holman runs Transition Vision, the online TV service for Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire.

You can see the 21st century incarnation of the Symondsbury Mummers here.

Peter Kennedy – writing in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, in 1952 – reported being knocked sideways when he first saw the Symondsbury Mummers perform.

‘”Magnificent young lads of sixteen and seventeen, over six feet, took the parts of the warriors and looked like giants in their tall conical hats.

“I found that they had learnt their parts entirely by word of mouth from uncles, fathers and grandfathers.”

The text of the Symondsbury Mummers Play is reproduced, with a short but good introduction, in A Dorset Christmas (Tempus, 2005), compiled by Fran and Geoff Doel.

St George: “Come, give me leave, I’ll thee battle, / And quickly make thy bones to rattle.”

It’s bloodthirsty but entertaining…

It’s a story that raises some worrying questions about how the county council treats people – and facts.

Why was Mr Cowling not explicitly warned that he needed to buy a ticket?

Why did the council say that new parking restrictions in Dorchester had been advertised – when the Dorset Echo and Wessex FM say they hadn’t?

Why did the council say that the National Trust owned a building in High West Street, Dorchester – when the National Trust insists it does not?

None of the answers to these questions is clear.

But Dorset County Council staff have been sent for “retraining”.

Lester’s battle with Dorset County Council

Most people – when they’re given a parking ticket – seethe but then accept the fact and pay up.

But Mr Cowling describes himself as a bit of an old Bolshie. A Portlander by origin, he trained as a journalist on the famous old Daily Mirror scheme in Plymouth (Alastair Campbell went on this). He had a long career in the media; jobs included running commercial radio stations, being Features Editor on the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph, and serving for a while as The Sun’s TV critic. These days he lives in West Bexington and works as the head of publicity for an environmental organisation.

In short, he’s no fool.

And he has not appreciated being treated like a booby.

Everybody has always acknowledged that he never intended to commit a parking offence.

Strictly speaking, he did – and Dorset County Council has been determined to make him pay.

Mr Cowling says that the council has spent tens of hours and possibly thousands of pounds in its efforts to make him pay.

The result was – after a tribunal held in Bournemouth – that he parted with £25.

Parking is one of the great local journalistic subjects (dog muck is another). The assemblage of pieces here is an attempt to cover it in a newish way. So first the facts, drawing on an account prepared by Mr Cowling himself.

How Lester Cowling got his Dorchester parking ticket

Mr Cowling’s ticket was issued one Sunday afternoon in November 2009. It was one of many given to motorists after the unpublicised introduction of on-street pay and display parking in Dorchester in 2009.

The scheme operates in some Dorchester streets but not in others, where kerbside parking remains free.

There was a postal strike on. Mr Cowling drove specially to Dorchester to deliver a cheque.

He’d not intended to park in High West Street, but saw a free space and pulled in. For decades these spaces had been free. He didn’t check the kerbside signs because it would have meant stepping into the busy road.

A Traffic Warden (posh title Parking Enforcement Officer) was near where he parked. Mr Cowling had a brief conversation with him before heading off to post his letter.

He didn’t realise that he’d failed to notice a parking machine, tucked away next to railings, which he’d already passed when he pulled in.

The Traffic Warden didn’t let on. When Mr Cowling returned less than five minutes later the Traffic Warden was taping a ticket to his windscreen.

So began, says Mr Cowling, “a long battle which would see piles of correspondence accumulate and which would reveal a side to the County Council very different from the friendly, caring and frugal organisation it likes to portray itself as.

“Some of the false statements made may astound you.

“Watch the video and see what happened.”

Click here for Lester Cowling’s story.

Click here for film-maker Ali Cameron’s story.

Click here for Dorset County Council’s response.

Bridport's Cafe Royal building has been sold to Nicholas de Savary as part of a series of privatisations by West Dorset District Council.

BRIDPORT’s iconic Café Royal has been sold at auction for £260,000 to Nicholas de Savary, brother of the famous property developer Peter.

Mr de Savary bought the Cafe as part of a block of buildings in Tannery Road.

After his successful bid, Mr de Savary told the Bridport artist Kit Glaisyer that he wanted to keep the café open.

Mr Glaisyer – who painted a series of pictures of the café – had been campaigning for its preservation.

He feared that the block of buildings in Tannery Road could be demolished and the site of “the most interesting building” in Bridport might then be used for housing.

As it turned out, Mr Glaisyer thought Mr De Savary’s purchase was “fingers crossed, great result, de Savary seems to genuinely want to keep the Café Royal going.”

de Savary family connections with Bridport

The de Savary family have connections with Bridport going back more than 50 years.

As Richard Sims points out in his outstandingly informative book Rope, Net & Twine: The Bridport Textile Industry (Dovecote Press, £25), part of Pymore Mill was sold in March 1959 to the General Woodworkers of London.

“Part of the De Savary portfolio and trading as Duncan Tucker, it opened in 1960 making windows for property developers Laing and Wimpey.

“George Heaver was the manager and he later set up his own business, which still makes windows today [as Heavers of Bridport].”

Nicholas de Savary is understood to enjoy visiting Bridport, because it reminds him of visits he made here when he was a child, with his father.

The Tannery Road buildings were sold by West Dorset District Council, as the first part of a series of privatisations that the council hopes will bring in £1.5 million pounds.

The guide price was £150,000, but initial documents indicated that the council always hoped to make £270,000. (Click to see this valuation on the link in the line above).

As first revealed on Real West Dorset, West Dorset District Council has also decided to sell Eype Beach, as part of the same process.

History of the Cafe Royal

The Bridport Council built a refreshment room at the Tannery Car Park in 1954; it was smaller than it is now. The property was leased to Harold and Annie Hopgood of Chideock.

In 1961 the building was extended to the form seen now, with the Hopgoods trading as the Cafe Royal (Bridport) Ltd.

In 1977 the lease was transferred to Coach Catering (Southern) Ltd.

In 1986 the lease was again transferred this time to Mrs Heather J Patten.

Thanks to Richard Sims for all the information above about the Cafe’s history. These days it’s run by TJ, as she is known.

Thanks  also to Mr Glaisyer for the video, shot on his phone. Mr de Savary is standing on the right; see after 2.15. Most bidders dropped out at around the £200,000 mark.

The blades of the wind turbines proposed for Toller Down would reach roughly the same height as the radio masts at Rampisham by the A356 in West Dorset. Photograph by Nigel Mykura, reused under Creative Commons Licence.

TWO WIND turbines reaching as high into the sky as the biggest masts at Rampisham radio station could be erected on the summit of Toller Down in Dorset.

Farmer Henry Lovegrove, of Comforts Orchard, Corscombe, wants to put a pair of turbines near the A356, up along from the Rampisham site.

The machines could generate enough electricity to power about 100 homes.

A design and access statement supporting Mr Lovegrove’s planning application acknowledges that two 34.2m high structures would be visible for many miles across the West Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

But it argues that “the skyline has already dramatically been broken” by the radio masts at Rampisham and the mobile telephone masts at Winyard’s Gap.     

And it claims: “The proposed turbines at Toller Down will enhance the area’s eco-credentials rather than ruin the skyline further.”

The nearest property is about 500 metres away.

In the video from Transition Vision TV’s Farming Channel that accompanies this piece, Mr Lovegrove says that if planning permission is granted the next stage will be “to go out to to tender, because I haven’t got any money, to developers, and ask them to quote a price for ground rental.”

He adds: “There is some pressure to get the local community to invest in this, and that will also be a question I’ll be asking the developers, to see if they will offer the opportunity to people in the locality to invest in these turbines, so they actually feel they own local energy production.”

The application is strongly supported by Corscombe Parish Council, while individuals from across Dorset and Somerset have also backed Mr Lovegrove’s vision.

“Bring them on and save our planet,” writes Ricky Hawkins from Shepton Beauchamp in Somerset.

“I doubt that they will offend the eye,” writes Ali Cameron, who indicates that he will be able to see them from his home in Marshwood.

Rev David Harknett, of the Melbury Team Ministry, writes: “The turbines seem very appropriate in an AONB. After all, we are seeking to safeguard the outstanding beauty of our whole planet!” 

Objectors include the Boileaus from Witcham Farm in Rampisham.

They say: “The dowland ridge has more than enough ugly clutter along its length.”

They add: “Off shore wind farms have been approved for Dorset, therefore we have more than contributed to the ‘green power movement’”.

And they conclude: “Applications of this sort are all about money. We would like to suggest that in the unlikely event the application is approved, it should be on condition that 90% of the money generated is distributed to the rural area and individuals blighted by these machines.”

For the last four years Liz and Nick have been hunting through orchards, fields and gardens for apples that used to make Dorset cider.

In the case of Golden Ball from Netherbury, there was only one tree left.

Marlpits Late Bittersweet may also have been unique.

But no more.

Liz said: “Having gone to all the trouble of finding them and resurrecting them, we want them spread about the county and put to good use.”

So all 20 of the rediscovered Dorset varieties have been propagated up in Herefordshire by John Worle, Bulmer’s ex orchards manager who now runs a nursery.

And more than 300 strong, healthy, bare-rooted, bush trees will be coming to Dorset for planting on March 19. (They can be grown on as standard trees, if desired).

Trees cost £5 each – if you’d like the pleasure, but also the responsibility, of reviving part of Dorset’s heritage.

Orders can be placed via Nick and Liz’s Dorset Cider project website (NB this website is being updated right now by Liz’s son).

Demand is strong. If you’re lucky, trees can be collected on March 19 from a bit of land opposite The Half Moon pub in Melplash (between Bridport and Beaminster).

The land is owned by the cider apple grower Rupert Best, who’s in charge of the Orchards & Cider Pavilion at the Bath & West Show.

Mr Best is going to establish a new “mother orchard” in Melplash including all of the 20 rediscovered varieties.

Fourteen trees will also go for planting around the car park of the Mill House Cider Museum in Overmoigne near Weymouth. The National Trust has also ordered some.

Traditional Dorset cider apple varieties

Bittersweet                             

Golden Bittersweet                 

Marnhull Bitters                                     

Fillbarrel                                                         

Meadow Cottage                                                           

Loders

Marlpits Late                                                                                      

Winter Stubbard                                                                     

Hains Late Sweet

Bittersharp

Dash Hays Crab

Yeovil Sour Cadbury

Cap of Liberty

Marnhull Mill

Warrior

Sharp / Dual Purpose

(Dual purpose means they could also be used as cookers)  

Golden Ball

Kings Favourite                                

Symes Seedling

Tom Putt

Stubbard

Buttery Door

Tangy

For further details, please go to www.dorsetcider.com

Dorset Cider Discoveries & Mysteries video

In the video accompanying this piece, Nick and Liz talk about some of their most exciting discoveries and touch on some persisting mysteries.

For example, the enigmatic Marlpits Late Bittersweet, which has come from a single tree at Marlpits Farm in West Milton near Bridport.

Nick thinks this produces a better single variety cider than the legendary Kingston Black (he thinks Golden Ball from Netherbury near Beaminster is also exceptional).

If Marlpits Late Bittersweet keeps on producing cider of superb quality, it may well end up being grown on a commercial scale. (January 20: I heard today there are plans to start growing it in Somerset, with a view to possible commercial production in a few years time).

And so the great Dorset cider revival will continue.

Note: I filmed and edited the video for Transition Vision’s Farming Channel. Transition Vision is a new online multi-channel local TV service covering Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire.

It’s at http://www.transitionvision.tv and on Twitter @transvisiontv

Many videos can also be seen on Transition Vision’s You Tube channel

Click on this line to watch a video about Nick Poole and the early days of the West Milton Cider Club