Blandford Forum, Dorset - Salisbury Street, Market, shops - Plastichrome c.1960s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Salisbury Street and Market Place, Blandford Forum [Dorset]
• Publisher: Plastichrome / W. Skipper (WHS 965)
• Postally used: no - has brief note date 1966
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Blandford Forum (/ˈblænfərd/ BLAN-fərd), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour about 13 mi (21 km) northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this was abolished and its area incorporated into the new Dorset unitary authority.

Blandford is notable for its Georgian architecture, the result of rebuilding after the majority of the town was destroyed by a fire in 1731. The rebuilding work was assisted by an Act of Parliament and a donation by George II, and the rebuilt town centre—to designs by local architects John and William Bastard—has survived to the present day largely intact.

Blandford Camp, a military base, is sited on the hills two miles to the north east of the town. It is the base of the Royal Corps of Signals, the communications wing of the British Army, and the site of the Royal Signals Museum.

Dorset County Council estimates that in 2013 the town's civil parish had a population of 10,610. The town's economy is based on a mix of the service sector and light industry, and provides employment for about 4,000 people.

Blandford has been a fording point since Anglo-Saxon times, when it was recorded as Blaen-y-ford and as Blaneford in the Domesday Book. The name Blandford derives from the Old English blǣge, and probably means ford where gudgeon or blay are found.[2][3] By the 13th century it had become a market town[citation needed] with a livestock market serving the nearby Blackmore Vale with its many dairy farms. At the start of the 14th century it returned two members of parliament and was also known as Cheping Blandford.[4] The Latin word Forum, meaning market, was recorded in 1540.[5]

In Survey of Dorsetshire, written by Thomas Gerard of Trent in the early 1630s, Blandford was described as "a faire Markett Towne, pleasantlie seated upon the River ... well inhabitted and of good Traffique".[6] In the 17th-century English Civil War Blandford was a Royalist centre; most inhabitants supported the king.[7]

In the 18th century Blandford was one of several lace-making centres in the county; Daniel Defoe stated that lace made in the town was "the finest bonelace in England... I think I never saw better in Flanders, France or Italy".[8] In the 17th and 18th centuries Blandford was also a malting and brewing centre of some significance.[9]

Blandford is situated between Cranborne Chase and the Dorset Downs, to the south-east of the Blackmore Vale, 13 mi (21 km) northwest of Poole and 22 mi (35 km) southwest of Salisbury. It is sited in the valley of the River Stour, mostly on rising ground northeast of the river, but with some development south of the river at Blandford St Mary.[27] The underlying geology is Cretaceous chalk bedrock that in places is overlain by Quaternary drift: alluvium in the river's flood plain, head deposits around the town's southwest, south and southeast borders, and clay with flints at the highest part of the town in the north.[28] The town is almost surrounded by land that has been designated as having landscape value of national significance: the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) to the west and the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB to the north and east.[29]