Background

Who Were We? has been researched and written by members of the 21st century community of Drimpton in west Dorset supported by national and international enthusiasts with links to our village. It sets out to give our 19th century neighbours a chance to speak to us today, to step out of the shadows and tell us something about themselves one more time.

We have set out to produce a community tree for our village and its neighbouring hamlets and settlements on the Dorset-Somerset border. It is a tree which shows the multiplicity of formal and informal links that bind a community together and proves that ‘people make places and places make people’ – a message with resonance today.

Who Were We? is the fourth village book researched and written under the management of Village Voices, which is a voluntary self-help group that uses the arts as tools for community development.

Village Voices was set up in Drimpton in 1999 in response to a village-wide survey and in the last 10 years it has delivered a range of projects. Among these have been two long-term ventures, Land Marks and Building Bridges. These large-scale projects set out to deal positively with the many changes brought about by major house building in our small rural community.

We are grateful to all the supporters of our projects, especially Awards for All and Dorset County Council. For more on our work please visit the Local Heritage Initiative or dorsetforyou.

Background

How the book was researched