Then and Now: Wool in the late 1920s and 2026

Wool High Street, probably in the late 1920s. The road is completely unmetalled – many Dorset village roads remained dusty or muddy into the late 1920s.
The telephone poles are already in place. Rural telegraph lines were common by the early 20th century, but widespread electricity distribution in villages tended to arrive during the 1920s and 30s.
The advertising is probably the strongest clue, with large Packers Chocolates signs draped across the windows – a renowned British confectionery manufacturer established in Bristol in 1881. The shop is surrounded by enamel advertising boards, with familiar brands like Lyons and Players very typical of the 1925–1935 period.
No cars are visible, but that isn’t especially significant in a Dorset village. A horse and cart was still perfectly normal well into the 1930s.
In the Shell Guide to Dorset, Michael Pitt-Rivers says of Wool: ‘Here the Frome is crossed by one of the finest bridges in the county and next to it stands one of Dorset’s most perfect small manor houses, Woolbridge Manor. Both are Elizabethan, though the front of the house was rebuilt about 1652 probably as a result of damage sustained during the Civil War. It is now a mellow blend of earlier stone and later brick, standing alone with its group of farm buildings on the marshy river bank.’
Once the home of the Turbervilles, the manor house was the inspiration for Wellbridge House – Tess’s ancestral home where she and Angel Clare spent their unfortunate honeymoon in Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
The 1939 Kelly’s Directory notes that the house is ‘visited by great numbers of sightseers during the summer months.’
The Phantom Coach of the d’Urbervilles is a tragic omen in Thomas Hardy’s novel. According to local legend, a ghostly carriage crosses the bridge near Woolbridge Manor House at night, but only those with Turberville blood can see it. Various versions of the legend exist, but one associates the coach with the elopement of John Turberville of Woolbridge with Anne, the daughter of Thomas Howard, 1st Viscount Howard of Bindon.
In the modern image, the street is remarkably unchanged architecturally – even the shop remains, though it is now the SPAR. The street looks much smaller now thanks to modern pavements and vehicles – and we presume there are rather fewer cows wandering down it.