The Plunkett Foundation’s Rural Community Ownership Awards are an annual celebration of the contribution community businesses make to creating resilient, thriving and inclusive rural communities. Broadwindsor Community Stores, which was nominated in the ‘Community Story of the Year’ category, is Read more »
Margery Hookings is invited along to the launch of a very special boat at Hestercombe House and Gardens, near Taunton, where she meets the West Dorset team who created it. The punt glides through the calm water of a lake Read more »
A school garden project in the heart of Bridport won a special award this year at the Melplash Show. Margery Hookings visited the edible garden to find out more about it. She was very taken with what she saw. Photographs Read more »
When I first moved to West Dorset in 1982 as a newly-qualified journalist on the Bridport News, one of the stories that began to gather momentum was the development of Bridport Leisure Centre. The land at Skilling Hill Road was Read more »
A visit to Somerset Rural Life Museum sends Margery Hookings on a nostalgic trip into the past, as it tells the story of how things used to be in the countryside. Many years ago, I visited Somerset Rural Life Read more »
It’s ‘make your mind up time’ as Bridport and the surrounding area maps out what the future might look like in the next eighteen years. Margery Hookings speaks to Phyllida Culpin about the Bridport Area Neighbourhood Plan, one of the Read more »
Margery Hookings finds out more about the local mental health charity, South Somerset Mind, and its project aimed at supporting young people, farmers in Somerset and North and West Dorset and women struggling with perinatal mental health. Approximately one in Read more »
Hooke Court in Malawi is a small charity making a big difference. It aims to provide opportunities for teachers in the UK and Malawi, Africa, to exchange ideas and learn from each other. It operates from Hooke, near Beaminster. Margery Read more »
Margery Hookings meets a remarkable young man who is bringing Britain’s Disabled Strongman competition to his hometown It’s been a labour of love for Somerset’s Gary Clarke, who next month brings the British Disabled Strongman competition to Chard. Since 2015, Read more »
Margery Hookings finds herself in the Caribbean where one of the Monmouth Rebels was transported after the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685. Azariah Pinney, who was meant to have been hanged for his part in the West Country rebellion, was Read more »