Venues in Dorset; hire a Jazz Band

This is a list of venues where you may want to hire one of our Jazz Bands for your Wedding, Party or Dinner. Our bands have already performed at many of these venues.

Undulating dairy country, well wooded, well watered and prosperous, spills over from north-east Dorset into Wiltshire. The little farming villages of the area are bordered to the south by the hills around Shillingstone, where moss is still gathered for sale in London's Covent Garden Market.

The landscape has the appeal of undisturbed rural tranquility. In Shaftesbury, Dorset's most ancient hill-top town, 700 ft above Blackmoor Vale, there are frequent glimpses from old cobbled hill-streets across rolling fields and grazing meadows. On a fine day, the view extends right across the upper Stour and even as far as the distant hill of Glastonbury. Shaftesbury makes an excellent centre for exploring the region on foot or by car.

To the west lies the Blackmoor Vale, with rivers like the Stour, the Lydden and the Caundle Brook, which gives its name to many places along its course. The thickly wooded copses and gentle hills make ideal hunting country, and in winter the Blackmoor Vale Hunt, with its splashes of colour, turns the rolling landscape into a hunting print come to life.

jazz bands at Alexandra Hotel and Restaurant, Lyme Regis, Dorset

jazz bands at Athelhampton House, Dorchester, Dorset

jazz bands at Birkin House, Dorchester, Dorset

Wool

A village of mellow charm on the River Frome, with one of the most beautiful 17th-century bridges in the county. The Elizabethan Woolbridge Manor was used by Thomas Hardy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles as the setting for Tess and Angel Clare's miserable wedding night. On the staircase of the manor, now a hotel, can be seen the faint tracings of two portraits of the real Turberville family; and the church where many of the family are buried is still standing. Half a mile east, the ruins of 12th-century Bindon Abbey stand among trees by the river. In its grounds is the open tomb in which, in Hardy's novel, Angel Clare placed Tess in his sleep.

 

jazz bands at Bishops Court, Shapwick, Blandford, Dorset

jazz bands at Bournemouth Highcliff Marriott Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Bournemouth International Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

Ansty

A village in the heart of the farming country. Along a narrow lane out of Ansty is a signpost to Wardour Castle, once the home of the Arundel family and now a girls' school. The old castle was destroyed during the Civil War, and i mile away from its ruins is the present 18th-century castle. Adjoining this is one of the most beautiful baroque Roman Catholic chapels in England; its splendid interior, rich in art treasures, was designed principally by Sir John Soane, James Paine and Quarenghi.

 

jazz bands at Bournemouth Town Hall, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Britannia Hotel Bournemouth, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Britannia Roundhouse Hotel, Lansdowne, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Chantmarle Manor, Frome St Quintin, Dorset

jazz bands at Durley Hall Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at East Cliff Court Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

Fontmell Magna

A village typical of many scattered Dorset settlements which have their ancient roots deep in the fertile soil. It is watered by the sparkling Fontmell Brook, flowing from the downs above. The area is rich in ash, beech and pine trees and has some particularly attractive thatched cottages. During the summer, open-air concerts are given in the pleasant rural setting of Springhead, a mill converted into a charming house with a romantic Venetian rotunda. It is reached by a narrow lane east of the A35O, rising towards Melbury Hill and Fontmell Down.

jazz bands at Eype's Mouth Country Hotel, Bridport, Dorset

jazz bands at Guildhall, The, Lyme Regis, Dorset

jazz bands at Harbour Heights, Sandbanks, Poole, Dorset

jazz bands at Heathlands Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Hermitage Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

Gillingham

A good shopping centre for tourists caravanning or camping in the dairy vale of Dorset. There are some fine Georgian houses to recall the time when the town and the countryside around it was acclaimed a beauty spot by the painter John Constable; the old silk mill was one of his subjects. The picture now hangs in the Tate Gallery. An old farmhouse beyond Wyke, on the main road north of the town, still has a lovely octagonal dovecot and a little stream flowing past its mellow brick-and-stone frontage. On the road to Mere is the old grammar school founded 450 years ago: the school itself has now been moved to the other side of Gillingham.

 

jazz bands at Hooke Court, Hooke Nr Beaminster, Dorset

jazz bands at Kingston Maurward House & Gardens, Dorchester, Dorset

jazz bands at Kingswood Hotel, Weymouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Langtry Manor, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Lulworth Castle & Park, Wareham, Dorset

jazz bands at Mansion House Hotel, Poole, Dorset

Iwerne Courtney

Sometimes known as Shroton, this is a charming village, well sheltered by the hills, on one of which, Hambledon Hill, is a prehistoric barrow. Child Okeford, 2 miles west, is a prosperous  farming settlement with thatched cottages, Georgian porticoed houses and an impressive manor. General Wolfe trained his troops here before the attack on Quebec in 1759.

 

jazz bands at Marsham Court Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Mayfair Hotel, The, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Merley House, Wimborne, Dorset

jazz bands at Parley Manor, Christchurch (nr Bournmouth), Dorset

jazz bands at Portland Castle, Portland, Dorset

jazz bands at Quay Thistle Hotel, Poole, Dorset

Iwerne Minster

A prosperous-looking village with thatched cottages and an old timbered inn, The Talbot. The church is mostly Norman and I3th century, with modern additions, and its 15th-century spire is a rarity in Dorset. Just outside the village is the site of a Roman villa.

 

jazz bands at Queens Hotel Bournemouth, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Royal Bath Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Salterns Harbourside Hotel, POOLE, Dorset

jazz bands at Salterns Hotel, Poole, Dorset

jazz bands at Sopley Mill, Sopley, nr Christchurch, Dorset

jazz bands at Stockbridge Farm Barn, Sherborne, Dorset

jazz bands at Summer Lodge Country House Hotel, Evershot, Dorset

jazz bands at The Chine, Bournemouth, Dorset

Mere

A village with two old coaching inns. The Old Ship has an interesting i8th-century sign associated with the badge of John Mere, a merchant adventurer who in the I4th century founded a chantry in the church for the singing of masses, and so gave the village its name. The Talbot is now modernised, but the old inn sheltered Charles II, in disguise, after the Battle of Worcester.

Just outside the pinnacled Perpendicular church, which has a rich and beautiful interior, is a Tudor chantry where the Dorset poet William Barnes had his own school. On the downland slopes outside the town are ridges which may have been Roman vineyards.

 

jazz bands at The East Close, Hinton, Christchurch, Dorset

jazz bands at The Haven, Sandbanks, Poole, Dorset

jazz bands at The Lord Bute Hotel & Restaurant, Highcliffe, Christchurch, Dorset

jazz bands at The Norfolk Royale Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at The Orangery Suite, Wimborne, Dorset

jazz bands at The Riviera Hotel, Alum Chine, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at The Royal Chase Hotel, Shaftesbury, Dorset

Shaftesbury

The town is built on the edge of a yoo-ft plateau, giving fine views over the Blackmoor Vale. It figures under its old name, 'Shaston', in Hardy's novels. The town first grew up around a nunnery endowed in AD 880 by King Alfred. In the Grosvenor Hotel, there is a famous Victorian sideboard, carved in 1862-7 by Gerrard Robinson from a single block of oak and depicting events in the 'Ballad of Chevy Chase'.

The town has some excellent grey-green, 18th-century stone houses, and the steep, cobbled Gold Hill is buttressed on one side and terraced like an Italian hill town on the other.

 

jazz bands at The Springhead, Sutton Poyntz, Nr Weymouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Town Hall & Council Chamber, Dorchester, Dorset

jazz bands at Tralee Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Tudor Grange Hotel, Bournemouth, Dorset

jazz bands at Tyrells Ford Country House Hotel, nr Christchurch, Dorset

jazz bands at Upton House, Poole, Dorset