TODAY we are taking a look at some old photographs of the hamlet of Wytherston, near Powerstock.

Thanks to the Powerstock Project, which has created a photographic record of the parish of Powerstock, near Bridport, we can find out more about the area in years gone by.

Helping to coordinate the project are Sue Diment, who works at Wytherston farm office, and Claire and Bob Humm who run the Powerstock Project.

The aim of their project was to create a photographic record of the parish of Powerstock and its surroundings by gathering old photographs and also taking new ones of the people living and working there today.

It is an ongoing project and can be found at powerstock.org.uk.

As well as old photographs they wanted to photograph as many people as possible – working, at leisure, taking part in village events, or at home – as a record for the future.

They have eight galleries on the website so it is well worth a look.

Bob said: “The idea for this collection/archive grew from several sources.

“Among them the few photographs I had taken of local people in the early 1980s.

“An old photo-postcard of Powerstock lent to us by Dick Score of Townsend which we enlarged, surprised at the amount of detail; also two or three old family photographs lent by the Marsh family of Powerstock Mill Farm.

“There was also a visit to an exhibition of Walker Evans photographs taken in the southern US in the 1930s (organised by Nancy Clemance of Burr Projects), touring nationally and shown at Axen Farm, Symondsbury

“And a conversation with Edward Marsh about the exhibition, in which we discovered that Axen Farm was where Everard Marsh was born, and a subsequent visit to Axen with the Marsh family, photographing Everard on the steps where he had been photographed as a six-year-old.

“Photographing Everard gave us the idea that we could extend the project to include photographs of people around the parish now, as they go about their work and take part in the events and customs which have developed over time, have changed or stayed the same, or are completely new. We hope this will create a record which reflects a little of life here today.”

Readers might also be interested in Tim Connor’s book on Wytherston A History of a Dorset settlement.

The photographs here have been sent to us by Sue Diment who works at Wytherston.

They are of a fire that occurred on the farm site in the 1960s when the House family lived there.

Mr Connor said: “Wytherston is now a small part of the parish of Powerstock, but it was once a parish with a chapel of its own, even though it may never have had a population of more than 50.

“There's not a lot of evidence, whether material, oral or written, for Wytherston's past. Just enough survives, however, to offer some idea of its occupation under the Romans, its contribution to the estates of the abbey of Abbotsbury, Stuart (and twentieth-century) music-making, eighteenth-century politics, Victorian farming, 1930s theatricals and modern improvements'.

“This richly illustrated account of the settlement shows what can be known of its past, its inhabitants and buildings, the agriculture of its two farms, its fields and trees.”

Mr Connor taught history and the history of art at Eton for many years, and has written several articles on the history of architecture, the Grand Tour and seventeenth-century pamphlets. He has also written on the early nineteenth century architecture of Bridport. He retired to Powerstock in 2004.

You can buy his Wytherston book either in person from Myrtle Cottage, Powerstock, ring 01308 485756 or by post.

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