Derelict building in Dorset village known for its place in British trade union history has won a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
A small derelict agricultural building beside the main road through the Dorset village of Tolpuddle is to be restored as ‘a quiet place’ to sit and think, in honour of the structure’s little known role in British trade union history.
A sycamore tree in the centre of the village, a few hundred yards from the old barn, is famous as the meeting place of the six agricultural labourers who became known as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, after they were sentenced to transportation to Australia in 1834 for daring to collectively demand better wages and working conditions, as their already miserable pay was being cut from nine to six shillings a week. They were pardoned two years later after their cause became a national campaign, and a petition was signed by 800,000 people. Their history is celebrated in a festival and rally organised every summer by the Trades Union Congress, and told in a small museum in the village. The building is listed Grade II*, in honour of its importance not just for the martyrs’ story but as a rare survival of one of the simplest early Methodist chapels.
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