Local History and Community Day at Sandy Hill

Local History and Community Day at Sandy Hill, Corfe Castle

We invite you for a cuppa and piece of cake, and to enjoy an afternoon of Community History. It”s a chance to share memories, and to learn about how Sandy Hill was linked to the life of Corfe Castle, and to the farms and villages beyond.

For decades, Sandy Hill was an important local industrial site: the location of the old Milk Factory, and part of a national drive to improve milk quality, and to boost public health. Raw milk was collected from dozens of farms in the Corfe Valley, and transported to the factory. Here it was checked for quality and safety, pasteurised and bottled, and then shipped by rail from the station, next door, to larger towns and cities. The Boilerhouse is now a gallery, but decades ago it was a noisy plant that sterilised the bottles and pasteurised the milk.

Please come and share any reminiscences, or even photos, that relate to the site, or to the surrounding area. Even if you don’t have direct experience, it will be a fascinating afternoon: a chance to explore the ways in which farming, industry, and village life interconnected in the early and middle part of the twentieth century.

No memory is too small! Do you know the name of someone who worked here? Which farmers and workers supplied the raw milk? Who were the railway staff who helped transport the bottled milk onwards? What were your experiences of drinking milk when you grew up? We need your help to piece together all the clues and connections!

Do you remember local words and phrases that are falling out of use? Our Community Day is also a chance to collect, and celebrate, the rich vocabulary of the Purbeck area.

We would also like to meet artists who worked here in more recent times, or anyone who has insights into the site’s natural environment and its deeper past,

Brilliant local historians will be on hand to help us pull all these vital fragments together. Ultimately, they will become part of the Town Hall Local History resource.,

Please pop across the railway tracks at Corfe to help us explore the heritage and natural environment of this unique spot!