News and Events |
Forthcoming EventsPast EventsDear Members James Dawkins, Centre Manager, Leeson House has extended an invitation to LMLHPS Members to join his team and local's for tea and a mince pie. Details in the poster below. This is an opportunity to visit Leeson House, Langton Matravers, BH19 3EU. The land which now forms the Leeson estate has been farmed since the Bronze Age. It has had a varied history, originally a farmhouse, then owned by the Garland Family, next a school for girls, then requisitioned during WW2 for the Radar Scientists, after the war a school for boys, then in 1966 becoming a Field Studies Centre! Further details can be found in the society publication by Reg Saville "Leeson in Langton Matravers - A Short History". This can be ordered via the society website along with several more fascinating local history publications. Maybe a stocking filler gift this Christmas? 
Songs of Sea and Stone An atmospheric show with film, live words and music Songs of Sea and Stone (1.5 hour programme with break and artist Q+A) Quarry Paths + Distant Voices (30 mins approx) is a new show developed in residency at Sandy Hill Arts and Sanctuary at Lighthouse Poole and in site response to the Purbeck stone landscape and stories weaving layers of ghost voices that track ancient routes of stone, quarries and clay mining in Purbeck alongside stories of quarries and the stone industry from Portland. This new programme starts with a presentation of Seiners (25 mins) commissioned by SoundUk celebrating traditional mackerel seine fishing and families on Chesil beach. Two live sharings are offered: 22nd July with Emily Burridge virtuoso cellist & composer 23rd July with musician and composer Julie Macara films by Adrian Cooper and Anson Hartford (Common Ground) and with director & consultant Laura Burrow Sandy Hill Arts 6.30-8pm with bar available Sandy Hill Studios, Sandy Hill Ln, Corfe Castle, Wareham BH20 5JF About the show---- Using archives, site response and collaborative research Dorset Songs of Stone: Quarry Paths + Distant Voices follows stone on its journey across millennia from quarries, and quarrymen and stone masons in their physical and stoic routines as well as the industry’s long standing tradition that connects identity of the local land memory to its people. The stone industry shapes Purbeck and Portland landscapes and people. Real conversations, archives, listening walks and memory talks form inspiration for this series of sketches that remember and celebrate local communities, families and link everyday life along the quarried coast to sense of place and collective memory. Here multiple voices and music drift along hidden ancient paths through the valley and ridgeways to highlight more than human agency and suggest a complex ecology of deep memory held in dimensions of stone. ---- Places are limited. We will not promote the events more widely until we have invited friends and community partners and everyone who has so kindly been part of the conversations and supported the project to help make this happen. Thank you all. Please book your free ticket below through Sandy Hill Arts: 22nd July https://sandyhillarts.co.uk/events/songs-of-sea-and-stone/?occurrence=2025-07-22 23rd July https://sandyhillarts.co.uk/events/songs-of-sea-and-stone-434/?occurrence=2025-07-23 
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