TRACES of a Roman camp have been discovered near Sherborne in West Dorset. Aerial photographs taken earlier this summer revealed three sides of a lightly built defensive enclosure in a barley field near Bradford Abbas. Marks showed up through the crop because the long hot days of June had parched the ground. English Heritage say [...]

SO FAR in this election campaign, Oliver Letwin has worn out two pairs of shoes. It’s amazing he hasn’t also worn out his tongue. After talking for an hour and a quarter in Loders Village Hall near Bridport  - and no answer he gave was ever less than five minutes long, and several were nearly ten [...]

THE WESTERN Gazette has merged its West Dorset edition with its Sherborne edition. The move has been badly received by readers such as Bill Gray, 60, of Bridport, who said: “It’s rubbish, that paper.” In the 1990s, the Gazette was one of the biggest weekly newspapers in the country, with a dozen or so different editions. [...]

FIRST planned as a simple West Dorset coffee morning, Hearts for Haiti ended up as a five-and-a-half hour extravaganza that raised about £4,000 for shelters for eathquake victims. “Amazing, freezing, and very funny” was the concise and considered verdict on the day given by Jane Read, of Pinks Organics of Hermitage, who organised the event with Charlotte Dick Read, of Reads Coffee, which is [...]

WHAT STARTED as a fund-raising coffee morning has turned into a unique community event bringing businesses and locals of all ages together, as the town of Sherborne shows its support for Haiti. Charlotte Dick Read from Reads Coffee Roasters and Jane Read from Pinks Organics (no relation) decided they wanted to do something different to [...]

  THIS is a story about remarkable things. Firstly, in glorious defiance of the recession, courses costing at least £265 per person start in West Dorset in February and March on the subject of the Mythic Imagination – things like daimons, fairylore, and the otherworld (“the neglected Western tradition of soul-making… described by Plato”). The first [...]

A snowy field near Bridport Wednesday, January 6 Afternoon snow update AFTER significant snowfall late in the morning and early this afternoon, with further flurries still expected, Dorset County Council’s gritting fleet is continuing to salt and plough priority routes. Much of the snow will begin to clear from the north by 5pm, when only [...]

  A PILE of hessian sacks filled with raw coffee beans are stacked up on a wooden crate in the corner, while a traditional roasting machine churns its first load of coffee of the day, and the bitter-sweet aroma of freshly-roasted coffee fills the air.  I almost expect a rugged explorer to come climbing out [...]