Blandford Forum

The Dorset Historic Towns Project report on Blandford Forum.

The historic urban character of Blandford Forum is closely bound up with its distinctive landscape setting and the quality of its historic fabric, as well as the preservation of its medieval layout. The medieval town plan retains distinctive burgage plots into which the distinctive coherent Georgian streetscape has been fitted.

The wide sweep of the river Stour and its associated wooded cliffs and broad meadows, coupled with post-medieval bridges, set the scene on the town approaches. This green swathe, so close to the medieval town centre, also provides a suitable backdrop to the Georgian design, underscores its local setting and emphasises links with the surrounding landscape. Victorian and later suburbs and industrial buildings around the fringes of the medieval town testify to the Blandford's more recent expansion.

Summary report

Here is a summary of the report (February 2011).

Detailed sections of the report

We have broken down the full report into individual sections, please select one of the parts to read:

• Part 1 and 2 Introduction and overview
• Part 3 and 4 Context and sources
• Part 5.1 Historical development - Medieval
• Part 5.2 Historical development - Post-medieval
• Part 5.3 Historical development - Victorian-Edwardian
• Part 5.4 and 5.5 Historical development - Inter-war and modern
• Part 6 Character appraisal
• Part 6 Historic Urban Character Area 1 The medieval town
• Part 6 Historic Urban Character Area 2 Salisbury Street
• Part 6 Historic Urban Character Area 3 Milldown Road
• Part 6 Historic Urban Character Area 4 Railway suburb
• Part 6 Historic Urban Character Area 5 North and East Blandford
• Part 6 Historic Urban Character Area 6 Blandford St Mary
• Part 7 Research and appendices