Using Blandford Forum Holiday Accommodation Guide to search your accommodation stay in Dorset, with all of the fantastic attractions in the area, the town of Blandford Forum is well worth a visit. Visitors who wish to vacation in the area will be delighted with the hospitality and accommodations available, making it a terrific holiday location for short breaks as well as extended vacations.
Exploring Blandford Forum, Dorset, which boasts the most attractive and consistent Georgian red brick and stone town centre in the South West. The first cause was a large fire in 1731, the second was the outpouring of public sympathy and financial aid that followed it becoming the home town of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but William Wake doubtless aided, and the third was the skill of two local architects named John and William Bastard, who did much of the rebuilding.
The 1739 church is one of the largest and grandest of its day outside of London. "God's terrifying visitation by Fire" is commemorated on a classical portico near the churchyard. The fire started in a tallow chandler's about 100 yards north west of the Market Place, and with the wind from the north, virtually everything to the south of it burned within an hour. All available fire engines were burned, soon all ladders, and eventually some 400 houses with the church bells "dissolved and ran down in streams," according to an eye witness.
Ryves Almshouses (1682) and Dale House (1689) in Salisbury Street, both featuring an amazing tulip tree in their gardens, and the Old House, which was the doctor's at the time of the fire and is located to the north east of the church, are the only important pre-1731 buildings left today. The British Legion in Church Lane is one of the loveliest Georgian structures outside of the lovely Market Place.
The town is the centre of a thriving farming community that includes dairying, arable farming, and, most notably, watercress production. It was once known for its lace, stained glass, and buttons, some of which may be seen in the Shatftesbury Museum. Its principal product is now beer.
Its economy is boosted by the big, long-established Army Camp two miles south east, where both Wolfe and Wellington reviewed soldiers. The bridge across the lovely, sluggish, weed-dappled River Stour, just to the south of the town, contains the usual Dorset bridge plaque stating that anyone "injuring" it is "liable to be transported for life."
Alfred Stevens, the sculptor and painter, was born in the town in 1818, and Orpen referred to him as "the most highly educated artist the county has seen." The Wellington Monument at St Pauls is one of his most well-known works. Thomas Hardy's "Shottesford Forum" was Blandford.
Bryanston School, about half a mile to the north west, is set in a mansion built in 1890 for the Portman family within a beautiful park. It has two churches, one Georgian and the other more recent.
They can be visited, although it is recommended that you speak with the Lodge Keeper first.
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