Step back in time with our ‘Then and Now’ feature, where vintage postcards from the Barry Cuff Collection meet modern-day reality. Explore the past and present on the same page, and see the evolution of familiar local places. ‘Now’ images by Courtenay Hitchcock
The iron railing is still present today – it’s apparent how much lower the road level used to be.
In his 1937 Shell Guide to Dorset, Michael Pitt-Rivers is rather unimpressed with Motcombe: ‘A sprawl of cottages, some old but mostly new. A large symmetrical church (St Mary) built … in 1848. Dark trees without; cream-wash and pitchpine within. A few dim medieval features incorporated. One brownish stained glass window.’
The ‘dark trees without’ theme remains to this day, obviously!
Motcombe House, now Port Regis Boys’ School, was built in 1893 by Sir Ernest George for Lord Stalbridge in an Elizabethan manner with red brick and a Tudor-style tower.
