LET'S delve into some picturesque old images of west Dorset's villages.

Some come from Claud Hider's magnificent collection and were taken from 1922 onwards.

They are very scarce but have been shared by Neil Mattingly of Charmouth, who has a passion for preserving and sharing Hider's work.

The pictures we share today are of Walditch and Whitchurch Canonicorum.

Click into our picture gallery above to see these lovely images full-sized

Walditch lies to the east of Bridport and south of Bradpole. The hill that divides it from Bothenhampton protects it from being absorbed into Bridport town.

Its church, St Mary's, has an ancient foundation dating from 1534, and was rebuilt in 1863.

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The church has several interesting memorials inside, one which relates to a local murder in Victorian times and two which mark the deployment of soldiers in the area during the Second World War.

During the Second World War in Bridport there was an American camp in Walditch.

Based there was the 1st US army Infantry Division - or the Big Red as it was called - who suffered enormous losses on Omaha beach on D-Day.

Of course, Whitchurch Canonicorum is known for the very ancient church of St. Candida and St Cross, which is unique in being the only parish church in England containing the bones of its patron saint. The Saint's relics are in a stone altar.

Sir George Somers (1554-1610) was the Mayor of Lyme Regis and later Governor of The Somers Isles (Bermuda).

He died "of a surfeit in eating of a pig", on 9 November 1610 in Bermuda. His heart was buried in Bermuda but his body, pickled in a barrel, was landed on the Cobb at Lyme Regis in 1618.

A volley of muskets and cannon saluted his last journey to the church at Whitchurch Canonicorum where his body is buried. It is also the burial place of Sir Robin Day as well as the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov.