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Wimborne Militia


Wimborne has had its Militia since 1998 wth the largely ceremonial role of ensuring the safety of the Mayor and keeping good order in the town, but the roots of town militias go back some considerable time further than that.


Each Lord in an area was obliged to provide an army to support the king in whatever ventures thought to be profitable to the Crown and Country and each small community was

obliged to keep men in training with archery practice and other such military training

(maybe, research the area known as Hillbutts just outside Wimborne, towards Pamphill)


Another reason in Dorset where Militia’s are found dates to the Civil War in the seventeenth  Century.  Dorset had supporters for Cromwell and the Parliamentarians as well as for Charles and the Crown; the Royalists  - and so the armies of each side would take whatever provisions they needed from the farms and the only thing for the agricultural workers to do was to band together in Militias to protect their property from the ravages of both fighting forces. The ‘Clubmen’ were just such a military group out at Hambledon Hill.

 (…yet another research project !)


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