History
LOST DORSET
NO. 18 SHERBORNE
‘U
David Burnett, The Dovecote Press
p to Lodge’, 1906. Traditionally, children and the elderly went to the Castle Estate Yard at 9am on Christmas Day to receive ‘two bright pennies’ from the Wingfield Digby family, owners of Sherborne Castle and much of the town. The origins of the custom are uncertain, though it was regularly recorded in Victorian times. The Western Gazette noted that in 1906 the elderly were given four pence each, children two, and, ‘it is estimated that 1,200 applicants received the bounty’ – hence the crowd of children gathered in the background. The tradition continued unbroken through both world wars and the change to decimalisation, though not alas the dangers posed by Covid in 2020. Hopefully, it will be renewed again this Christmas, with the children being given chocolate coins and the remaining recipients coins and a commemorative card. dovecotepress.com Lost Dorset: The Towns 1880-1920, the companion volume to Lost Dorset: The Villages and Countryside, is a 220-page large format hardback, price £20, and is available locally from Winstone’s Books or directly from the publishers.
56 | Sherborne Times | December 2021
