What’s On

____________________________ Tuesdays 10am-11am and 6pm-7pm The Heart of Yoga Classes 7 Sheeplands Lane, Sherborne Contact aristos.tropos@gmail.com for details. aristos.org.uk

____________________________ Wednesdays 10-11am Tai Chi for Wellbeing 7 Sheeplands Lane, Sherborne Contact aristos.tropos@gmail.com for details. aristos.org.uk

Until Friday 6th Sherborne Abbey Festival Venues across town. Sherborne’s annual, week-long celebration of music returns for 2022. Tickets: 0333 666 3366 and via sherborneabbeyfestival.org

____________________________ Wednesday 4th 3pm and 7pm The Arts Society Sherborne: The Road is Wider than Long – Antony Penrose Digby Hall, Hound Street. All welcome. Non-members £7 (See article page 14) Yeovil Cinematheque – I Never Cry (2020) 15 Swan Theatre, 138 Park St, Yeovil BA20 1QT. Members £1, guests £5. cinematheque.org.uk (see preview page 8)

____________________________ Friday 6th 7.30pm Tango Calor Charlton Horethorne Village Hall Internationally acclaimed authentic tango trio with Indira Roman from Havana and bandoneon (Argentine concertina) player Mirek Salmon, £10. 01935 814199 jb@classicmedia.co.uk or takeart.org

____________________________ Saturday 7th 10am-4pm Plant Fair & Open Garden Yarlington House, Yarlington BA9 8DY Tea, coffee and cake. Plant raffle. Free parking. £5 (under 16s free) – cash if possible. 01963 440344

____________________________ Thursday 12th 7.30pm Sherborne & District Gardeners’ Association Meeting A short AGM will be followed by a talk by Angie Blackwell of Cottage Flowers. Non-members £2. Information from Richard Newcombe 01935 389375.

Friday 13th 7pm Sherborne Literary Society Talk with Author Saul David – SBS Silent Warriors: The Authorised Wartime History Digby Memorial Church Hall, Digby Road. Tickets from Winstone’s Bookshop and sherborneliterarysociety.com/ events. Members £9, non-members £10.

____________________________ Saturday 14th Sherborne & District Gardeners’ Association Morning Plant Sale Parsons Yard, Cheap Street. All are welcome! Information from Richard Newcombe 01935 389375.

Saturday 14th - Sunday 29th Dorset Art Weeks Venues across the county. For details visit dorsetartweeks.co.uk, pick up a copy of the DAW Directory, or download the app (see pages 88-90 for local directory)

____________________________ Sunday 15th The Sherborne Market Cheap St, Half Moon St, Digby Road and Pageant Gardens. Local producers, suppliers, amazing food and crafts thesherbornemarket.com

____________________________ Wednesday 18th 7.30pm Sunset Café Stompers with Julia Titus Blues and Gospel Singer Cheap St Church. Live jazz in aid of The Rendezvous. Bookings by email only raymondwood1949@gmail.com

____________________________ Saturday 21st 9.30am-4pm Quarterly Bookfair The Digby Memorial Church Hall,

Digby Road. A variety of sellers offering a wide range of second-hand books, maps, postcards, and other ephemera, at competitive prices. Free entry. colinbakerbooks@btinternet.com

____________________________ Saturday 21st - Sunday 22nd 10am-5pm Shakti Mantra Yoga Angels of Sound (Module 2) Oborne Village Hall, DT9 4LA. The art of overtone singing using Western Labial Style. £70. Bookings only 01935 389655 ahiahel@live.com

____________________________ Saturday 21st 10am-1pm Repair Cafe Cheap Street Church Hall, Sherborne Bring household items to be repaired and avoid landfill. Volunteers and repairers needed. Contact repaircafesherborne@gmail.com or @ repaircafesherborne (last repair 12.15pm)

____________________________ Saturday 21st 10.30am-12pm Plant Sale St James Church, Longburton DT9 5PG Plant stalls, cake stall, raffle and refreshments. Free admission. In aid of Longburton Garden Club funds.

____________________________ Saturday 21st 11am-5pm Mind Body Spirit Fayre Digby Hall, Hound Street Treatments and therapies, psychics, tarot and stalls selling everything from jewellery to macrame. Entry £1.

____________________________ Sunday 22nd 1.30pm-4.30pm Sherborne Folk Band Workshop Digby Memorial Hall, Digby Road, DT9 3NL. Julia Catovsky will teach tunes and harmonies by ear. All levels and all acoustic instruments. Notation and audio supplied. £10 on the door. Tickets are cheaper in advance via the website sherbornefolkband.org info@ sherbornefolkband.org 07527 508277

Tuesday 24th 7pm Sherborne Literary Society Talk with Author Toby Harnden

Friday Lunchtime Recitals

Cheap Street Church 1.45pm

May 6th Pianists

May 13th Brass

May 20th Strings May 27th Woodwind

June 10th The Choral Scholars

FREE ADMISSION ALL WELCOME

- First Casualty: The Untold Story of the Battle that Began the War in Afghanistan The Powell Theatre, Abbey Road. Tickets available from Winstone’s Bookshop and sherborneliterarysociety.com/ events. Members £9, non-members £10.

Saturday 28th 12pm-11pm Mill Farm Folk Festival Mill Farm, Bradford Abbas, DT9 6RE Live music from Harbottle and Jonas, Vicar’s Son, Pete Robson Blues, The Ducks, Tony & Una and Conor Smith. Local ciders, ales and picnic hampers. Tickets from millfarmdorset.com/events/folkfestival

Sunday 29th Sherborne Castle Country Fair & Rare Breeds Show Sherborne Castle, New Road. Child £4, family £30, advance tickets 10% discount. Tickets and information sherbornecountryfair.com

____________________________ Sunday 29th 2pm-4pm Divine Union Soundbath Oborne Village Hall, DT9 4LA Crystal and Tibetan singing bowl soundbath. £15. Bookings only. 01935 389655 or email ahiahel@live.com

____________________________ Tuesday 31st Single Owner Collection of Classic Twin Shock Trials Motorcycles Charterhouse Auctioneers, Long Street 01935 812277 charterhouse-auction.com

listings@homegrown-media.co.uk

Dorchester Corn Exchange Sunday 22 May, 7pm

BBC Radio 3 New Generation artist Sean Shibe shows his mastery of ancient and modern guitar works, with compositions separated by centuries, but brilliantly chosen to complement one another. Anonymous: Scottish Lute Manuscripts Bach: Suite in E Minor, BWV 996 Steve Reich: Electric Counterpoint Julia Wolfe: LAD

Box Office: 01305 266926 dorchesterarts.org.uk

Dorchester Corn Exchange High East Street, Dorchester, Dorset DT1 1HF Dorchesterarts

“Shibe’s music-making is masterful, beautiful and convincing in every way” The Times

Register Charity No: 1015546

FUN OF THE FAIR

Jess Chiplen, Deputy Head of Shows, The Royal Bath & West of England Society

Modern theme parks, where thrill-seekers can experience a rush of adrenalin on evermore terrifying feats of engineering, have been popular for many years. But there is an enduring fondness for vintage fairgrounds, those travelling shows which roll into town once a year for a few days, before magically packing up and disappearing again. Did you ever look at those colourful vehicles, and wonder how it all began?

The roots of the fairground can be traced back to the 12th Century, where the Bartholemew Fair of 1133 featured entertainment in the form of dancing and music. The ‘Funfair’ as we know it really began in the 18th and 19th centuries when it became a place of entertainment, and early fairs also featured travelling menageries. Although you will not see these now, you might still be lucky enough to win a goldfish!

Funfairs changed dramatically in the 1860s and 1870s as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Rides were transformed from small, simple hand-turned machines into large complex equipment, requiring major sources of power to run them. Steam-powered carousels featuring ‘galloping horses’ appeared, with the design remaining a recognised feature of the travelling fairground to this day. At the same time, the introduction of mechanical organs meant loud music could be added to the spectacle.

As the Industrial Revolution increased road and rail networks, travelling became much easier. The growth of densely populated towns and cities, with new factories full of staff with wages to spend, created plenty of destinations for the travelling fair to visit. The populations of these towns could not help but be impressed by the spectacle rolling by, towed by the powerful and elaborately decorated showman’s engines.

When we think of a funfair, images of iconic rides spring to mind such as carousels, big wheels, and swings, and each of these have their own fascinating histories. Although it would be understandable to assume that the swings and roundabouts seen in many travelling funfairs today are also products of the Industrial Revolution, they in fact pre-date it. Swings have been in existence ever since man attached a plank of wood to a tree by means of a rope, and over time

these have evolved in fairgrounds, from the mechanical rides featuring a number of swings together to the multi-passenger boat. Early passenger boats had to be pushed to make them swing, but over time they became self-propelled with the riders pulling on ropes passing through an overhead pulley.

From the 1880s steam swings were constructed along similar lines to conventional swingboats, with the pulley given a short burst of momentum when passengers pulled on the rope. Making the most of the public’s interest in ocean travel, huge boats were introduced and named after famous ships of the day.

This was a thrilling ride, and modern variations on it can still be seen today at theme parks, where they are often painted as pirate ships.

Like the swing, roundabouts have a long history.

Early horse roundabouts at showgrounds were known as ‘Dobbies’ or ‘Dobby sets’, and were propelled manually by the operator or pulled by ponies. Steam power replaced this from the mid-19th century, with the first one recorded at Aylesham Fair in Kent in about 1865. It is thought that this was the inspiration for an engineer called Frederick Savage, who began to create similar machines at his agricultural engineering works with items such as bicycles, boats, model horses, and model cockerels attached to the platform. In later years he developed his ideas to include ‘Tunnel Railways’ on which a train pulled carriages around a circular track, with a tunnel partway round.

A vintage fairground wouldn’t be complete without a Big Wheel, and of course the ‘London Eye’ is in effect a very large Big Wheel. Small versions of the Big Wheel were known as ‘Overboats’, and a painting of Bartholomew fair from as early as the 1700s shows a 4-car overboat. But the Big Wheel DAW_ST.qxp_Layout 1 22/04/2022 10:45 Page 1 story really begins in the 1890s, with the first one created for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair by George Washington Gale Ferris. Over the following five years British engineer Walter B. Bassett built four large wheels which were located at London’s Earls Court, Blackpool, Paris and Vienna (which is still operating today). American engineer William Sullivan designed the first portable wheel in 1900, and five years later the Eli Bridge company, which he headed, began mass production. By the 1940s, Big Wheels were a regular feature at fairs in the UK.

Today, inspired by the London Eye, Big Wheels can be seen in many large towns and cities such as Scarborough and Blackpool. Newcastle will have its own Big Wheel, called the ‘Whey Aye Wheel’, which is due to open in 2024. This iconic ride is an ideal way to get a bird’s eye view of your surroundings – just don’t look down!

As we move into spring and summer you are sure to find a vintage funfair, featuring the types of rides we have described, coming to a town near you. From the Royal Bath & West Show in June, to Bath’s Victoria Park in August, and Bridgwater in September, prepare for a fun-packed day filled with entertainment from a bygone age.

bathandwest.com

___________________________________________ Thursday 2nd - Saturday 4th June 9am-5pm Royal Bath & West Show 2022 Bath and West Showground, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 6QN. The Royal celebration of great British entertainment, food & drink and countryside returns! Group and advance ticket discounts available. Each advance adult ticket includes free entry for two children aged between 5-15 years old. bathandwest.com/tickets

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DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES

14 – 29 MAY 2022

dorsetartweeks.co.uk