Neil Baird Photography

Visitors to the Shaftesbury area all head for the town’s famous ‘Gold Hill’. Shaftesbury has a successful small economy with many independent stores, cafés and antique shops. Tourism is the area’s biggest industry. Gold Hill is situated next to Abbey Walk where Shaftesbury Abbey was sited. Founded in 888 it was the first and the most powerful women’s religious community in the country, partly because it housed the remains of Edward the Martyr, whose relics were responsible for Shaftesbury’s rise to power. Until the Abbey’s dissolution in 1539 Shaftesbury was an important town – a place of pilgrimage and a destination for Royalty. It is now better known for a more recent event – the filming of Ridley Scott’s iconic 1970s and ‘80s Hovis TV commercial at Gold Hill.

John and Sue Wright, retired business owners. Like many incomers, they discovered the area on holiday many years ago and often came to get away from their busy life in London. ‘Eventually we realised we could afford to buy a small place down here which we visited as often as we could for several years. Since we first came here we knew we would eventually come to stay, and when we found the cottage it was obviously the time to take the step’.

Caroline works as a personal chef for Lord 'R', the owner of a UK tabloid newspaper. The estate was rebuilt recently in a pastiche style of an 18th Century Manor House. Caroline’s job involves creating and serving gourmet meals to invited celebrity guests in partnership with the Lady 'R', for which they are developing quite a reputation among this elite social group. ‘I can’t see myself staying here much longer though’ she says, I want something that is more creatively challenging but where I am not worked so hard’.

Win Harvey is the Mayor of Shaftesbury. Like all her colleagues around the country hers is a volunteer role, and this is the second time she has been voted Mayor of the town. When not running her small shop selling hand-made teddy bears Win is doing some kind of town council business. ‘Most of my spare time is spent undertaking duties as mayor’ she says, ‘and as well as a busy schedule of regular council and committee meetings which I chair, I attend events, openings and award ceremonies throughout the year.

Ben Peat, Eoin Brew and Jonni Piston at Toby’s Project young people’s centre in Shaftesbury. ‘We don’t like it round here. It’s a place for old people and there’s nothing for us to do’ says Eoin. ‘I’m leaving as soon as I can to go and work in Aberdeen in the oil industry’. The other two agree. ‘But it’s not so easy for everyone to do what they want’ Jonni adds. His family are Romany travellers who are temporarily camped in one of the council’s permitted traveller camp areas.

Richard was ‘born and bred’ in Shaftesbury. Since he was small he has heard stories of ‘the tunnels’. Although dismissed by some as pure fantasy, rumours of a network of ancient tunnels leading from the Abbey ruins out to numerous locations on the town’s outskirts persist. Monks used them for secret rendezvous with Shaftesbury’s nuns, or the nun’s themselves built and used them in the uncertain times leading up to to Henry VIII’s dramatic dissolution of monastic communities, or they were smugglers tunnels perhaps, since some are thought to end at previous sites of the town’s many public houses. According to Richard one of those tunnels runs ‘immediately under The Ship right where we’re standing’.

The cast of Shaftesbury Arts Centre’s new theatre production with their director Sue Cadmore. The Arts Centre is a much loved institution, and central to the Shaftesbury area’s cultural life. It has a 250 seat theatre, galleries and workshop spaces. The programme features popular live music events, a film society, theatre productions and a wide variety of classes in the visual arts. It is funded entirely by its membership, and is run by local volunteers.

Helen Lickerish, dowser and Feng Shui practitioner, at Wingreen tumulus. Wingreen is a local landmark and probably the highest point in the area. The tumulus is surrounded by trees. There is rhunic graffiti cut into the trees all over the site, and there is frequently evidence of ‘floral offerings’ left at the bases of the trees. ‘There is almost certainly a Wiccan or Druid influence in the area, she says, ‘it’s not such a straight conservative area, once you start to scratch the surface’.