The Blandford Blog

Well, the big news for Bournemouth this week was the appearance, in a night club, of none other than Prince William. The Prince, along with some army mates was spotted at Elements Night Club at the weekend. He, and a group of his army pals turned up around midnight and stayed until closing time at 3:30am.

The Prince appeared to be really enjoying himself, drinking pints of lager, dancing and even posing for mobile phone photos with several girls. When the management came out and offered him the use of the VIP area, the prince refused and said he preferred to stay with the rest of the crowd. Well done William, it’s nice to see a member of the royal family behaving like a normal person.

I won’t go into the full story here, but if you want to read more about it take a look at the announcement page.

Basically, the once thriving Blandford Blog suffered a crash and everything was lost. The only thing left of the old blog is the original template, which I am reusing again for the new Blandford Blog.

Please don’t leave comments pointing me to the many free, modern blog templates that are available these days. I will continue to use the old template as a sort of memorial to the old Blandford Blog.

Blandford Forum is a small town in Dorset, on the map it is roughly half way between Bournemouth and Salisbury. In, what is locally called “The middle of nowhere”.

The town sits on the banks of the river Stour and probably was built because this is where the old roads from Salisbury to Dorchester and Poole to Shaftesbury met and crossed the river. As was usual in old England, where ever roads met, or crossed rivers a town or village was bound to spring up.

Blandford is one of the best preserved Georgian towns in England. Although its history goes back much further than the 1700’s, there are only two building in the town that predates 1731. This was the year of “The Great Fire” which destroyed the entire town, leaving only two buildings standing.

As a result of this, the buildings in the center of the town, or the old part of the town as it has grown considerably over the year, all date between 1735 and 1760.

As you move out from the centre of town the building get newer, until at the edges of the town the houses are only a few years old.

Well, that gives a brief outline of the town’s history. Future posts, I hope, wil be a mixture of current evens in and around the town, with a some historical posts thrown in for interest.