Dorset Record Society
For information about the society and earlier volumes go to http://www.palmyra.me.uk/DNHAS/drspubs.html.
Ralph Treswell’s Survey of Sir Christopher Hatton’s Lands in Purbeck 1585-6, edited by Mark Forrest (volume 19)
When Elizabeth I’s courtier Sir Christopher Hatton acquired lands in Purbeck he commissioned Ralph Treswell to produce a survey of his estate. Treswell used the most advanced and revolutionary mapping techniques to create a document that still conveys the character of the late Tudor landscape. The detailed plan of Corfe Castle gives an insight into the building’s features and construction only sixty years before its destruction in the Civil War. This facsimile edition reproduces all of his maps, together with maps by Saxton and Hawsted with which they were bound, the accompanying written survey and a transcription in modern English. It is introduced by four essays that provide a national cartographic, archaeological and historic context by exploring the themes of early map making, land use, manuscript conservation and estate management. 2017, ix, 189pp, large format colour casebound, £19.95, ISBN 978-0-900339-22-6
Weymouth and Melcombe Regis Minute Book 1617-1660, edited by Kay Kearsey and Maureen Weinstock (volume 20)
In the seventeenth century the town of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis was emerging from its medieval troubles to become a significant harbour on the south coast. The Minute Book, covering the years 1617-1660, provides the context for its economic and strategic development. It gives detailed surveys of the properties and rents, as well as listing the customs duties and acting as a register for the enrolment of freemen and apprentices. It documents the daily decisions of the assembly and sets out the ordinances by which the town was governed; noting the leaseholders and profits of the market, bridge and customs duties, and appointments of the officers who regulated affairs during the turbulent years of the reign of Charles I, the Civil War and the Commonwealth. 2020, xxvii, 246pp, casebound, £14.00, ISBN 978-0-900339-23-3
The Thomas Rackett Papers, 18th-19th Centuries, edited by H S L Dewar, revised by Ann Smith (volume 21)
From his quiet country parish at Spetisbury in Dorset, the Rev. Thomas Rackett corresponded with a wide-ranging variety of friends and contacts between 1786 and 1840. Fellow members of the Royal Institute wrote about experiments in physics, chemistry, engineering and the emerging science of electricity, Sir Richard Hoare wrote to him about archaeological exploration, and friends from abroad sent news from afar as South Africa, Canada and Russia. Rackett's interests included botany, engineering, heraldry, prehistoric and Roman antiquities, geology, shells and conchology, barrow-digging, Greek and Roman coins, and methods of engraving. He was personally involved in many of these activities and his correspondents wrote to him for advice and to exchange opinions. His wife and daughter contributed to the scientific, literary and historical discussions and come across in these letters as intelligent and well-read members of a society that accepted them as intellectual equals. The Thomas Rackett Papers was first published by Dorset Record Society in 1965 and this new edition includes correspondence with Mary Anning who was a friend of Rackett's daughter. Dorset Record Society, vol.21. September 2021, xvi, 135pp, casebound, £14.95, ISBN 978-0-900339-24-0