Blandford Forum Town Hall

Blandford Forum ( BLAN-fərd) is a market town in Dorset, England, by the River Stour 13 miles (21 kilometres) northwest of Poole. It had a population of 10,355 at the 2021 census. The town is notable for its Georgian architecture, the result of rebuilding after a major fire in 1731, which was assisted by an Act of Parliament and a donation by George II, to designs by local architects John and William Bastard. The town's economy is based on a mix of the service sector and light industry. Blandford Camp, a military base, is on the hills two miles (three kilometres) north-east of the town. It is the base of the Royal Corps of Signals, the communications wing of the British Army, and the site of the Royal Signals Museum.

The Pump House, Blandford Forum, Dorset, England, is an 18th-century water source erected in 1760 in commemoration of a fire which almost destroyed the town in 1731. It was designed and paid for by John Bastard who, with his brother William, worked as builders and architects and were largely responsible for the town's reconstruction. The Pump House is a Grade I listed structure.

Blandford Forum railway station was a station on the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway which served the town of Blandford Forum.

Coombs Ditch Hundred was a hundred in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes: Anderson Blandford Forum (borough from 1605) Blandford St Mary Bloxworth Winterborne Clenston Winterborne Tomson Winterborne Whitchurch

Blandford St Mary is a village and civil parish in the North Dorset district of Dorset, England. The village is on the south bank of the River Stour, immediately opposite the larger town of Blandford Forum. The village grew up around the Badger Brewery, owned by Hall and Woodhouse, which is based there. At the 2001 census it had a population of 1,233. The appropriate electoral ward is called 'Portman' with naturally the most populous area being south of the river. The ward includes Bryanston School and also runs south west almost to Thornicombe. The total ward population at the abovementioned census was 2,436.Blandford St Mary has a busy Tesco supermarket and fuel station and a Homebase DIY store which attracts shoppers from the many villages that surround the Blandford area. In addition there are a number of offices in Stour Park. In the residential area there is a new housing estate and primary school. An older area of the village near the river bridge to Blandford Forum has a traditional public house and a village green. Opposite is the old stone gate at the entrance of the Bryanston School estate. Outline planning permission has been given to redevelop the Hall & Woodhouse brewery site to include new offices and 200 new homes. Lower Blandford St Mary is a rural outpost of Blandford St Mary, in the farm fields to the south across the bypass road, with a small church and graveyard, and one or two historic houses. The Dorset Central Railway, which opened on 1 November 1860 from the LSWR station at Wimborne, had a station in the village, serving the neighbouring important market town of Blandford Forum. This was demolished when the line amalgamated to be part of the Somerset & Dorset Railway, and a bridge was built over the river Stour to the station at Blandford.

The Blandford School is a coeducational secondary school located in Blandford Forum in the English county of Dorset.It is a voluntary controlled school administered by Dorset County Council. Previously an upper school, education in the local area was reorganised in 2005 and the school expanded its age range to pupils aged 11. The school also has the Rights Respecting Schools Award. The Blandford School offers GCSEs, BTECs and OCR Nationals as programmes of study for pupils, while students in the sixth form have the option to study from a range of A Levels, Cambridge Technicals and further BTECs.

The A354 is a primary route in England which runs from Salisbury in Wiltshire to Easton on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, a total distance of 51 miles (82 km). From Salisbury the road crosses Cranborne Chase. At Woodyates the road follows the route of Ackling Dyke, a Roman Road for a short distance. The A354 briefly merges with the A350 at the Blandford Forum bypass before crossing the Dorset Downs and merging with the A35 at the Puddletown bypass. 7 miles (11 km) to the west it splits from the Dorchester bypass and runs south. The road now bypasses Upwey and Broadwey on a new section of road which has some two lane sections going north and one lane continuously going south towards Weymouth. After the old and new sections meet at Manor Roundabout the road follows down Weymouth Way alongside Radipole Lake. The final stretch runs across a short bridge over Chesil beach onto Portland. Historically the section between Dorchester and Fortuneswell was part of the A37 with the extension to Easton being the original B3154. This section of the A37 became part of the A354 in 1935 but the B3154 was only renumbered as part of the A354 in the 1980s.

Bryanston is a village and civil parish in north Dorset, England, situated on the River Stour 1 mile (1.5 kilometres) west of Blandford Forum. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 925. The village is adjacent to the grounds of Bryanston School, an independent school. The village was named after Brian de Lisle, a Baron at the court of King John. The Rogers family owned it for a long period of time, and it was later purchased by Sir William Portman, 6th Baronet, who took part in crushing Monmouth's rebellion in 1685. In the 1890s the Portman family built a large country house, designed by Richard Norman Shaw and set in 400 acres (160 ha). Since 1927 the building has been the home of Bryanston School. In 1950 Viscount Portman gave up the Bryanston Estates as part payment of death duties. The estate was then owned by the crown until 2015 when the estate was purchased by a UK company held on behalf of the Viscount Rothermere and his son the Hon Vere Harmsworth for an initially undisclosed sum, which the Crown Estate confirmed in a Freedom Of Information request to have been £43million.

Langton Long, Blandford is a small village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It is sited by the River Stour, approximately 3⁄4 mile (1.2 kilometres) southeast of Blandford Forum. In 2013 the estimated population of the parish was 120.Forming the southeastern line of the parish boundary is an old track linking prehistoric Buzbury Rings, on nearby Keyneston Hill, to a ford over the river.St Leonards farmhouse used to house a leper hospital.The parish church was rebuilt in 1862.

The Coade Hall is a brick-built theatre and concert hall at Bryanston School, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, England.

Bryanston School is a public school (English private boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18) located next to the village of Bryanston, and near the town of Blandford Forum, in Dorset in South West England. It was founded in 1928. It occupies a palatial country house designed and built in 1889–94 by Richard Norman Shaw, the champion of a renewed academic tradition, for Viscount Portman, the owner of large tracts in the West End of London, in the early version of neo-Georgian style that Sir Edwin Lutyens called "Wrenaissance", to replace an earlier house, and is set in 400 acres (1.6 km2). Bryanston is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It has a reputation as a liberal and artistic school using some ideas of the Dalton Plan.

Charlton Marshall Halt was a station in the English county of Dorset. It was located between Blandford Forum and Bailey Gate on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. The station consisted of two short platforms and shelters.