Planning urgency, Saxon skeletons, opinionated locals, a 700-year-old murder case and it’s Dorset County Show weekend – this month’s BV is big, bold and brimful of Dorset.
- “Planning isn’t fair” – As Dorset’s Local Plan consultation opens, former planning chief Sherry Jespersen and the CPRE explain why residents must speak up now.
- Unearthing the Anglo-Saxons of Iwerne Minster – A seventh-century Christian cemetery discovered beneath a village housing site.
- Dorset County Show special – Your essential guide to the biggest weekend in Dorset’s calendar.
- The Grumbler returns – and this month it’s a historian unimpressed by a certain show commentator.
- Ela Fitzpayne was a local 14th century noblewoman who was ‘proud, independent and didn’t easily bow to authority’. She was also a thief … and a murderer
- Letters: local voices and a whole lot of opinion – from solving the housing crisis to tourists who don’t know how to reverse.
- Equestrian insight with a kick – Tamsin Doar tells all on the chaotic charm of veteran show classes.
Plus: eight unsurprisingly glorious pages of readers’ photography, wildlife, equestrian, farming, puzzles, and plenty of proper Dorset wit and wisdom.
Free to read, exclusively digital, and awarded Regional Publication and News Site of the Year 2024 – dive in.
