DOCUMENTS once thought lost have been transcribed in a new book about Dorset’s Civil War history - including the famous Lyme Regis siege.

In 1982, a missing portion of the minutes of the Dorset Standing Committee was discovered at Kingston Lacy, home of Dorset’s largest landowners, the Bankes family - and it is now being published by the Dorset Record Society.

Tim Goodwin’s book, Dorset in the Civil War, is the first to be published on the subject since 1910. He has been fascinated by the history of Dorset, especially in the 17th century, since moving to the county in 1988 and continues to research the period.

The minutes cover the period when the country was ruled by Parliament under Oliver Cromwell. Dorset’s Civil War history is rich in incident with the sieges of Corfe Castle and Lyme Regis being major events in the history of the conflict.

The launch of the book at Dorset History Centre will take place on Saturday, May 18, at 2pm.

Ann Smith, secretary of the Dorset Record Society said: “When Ralph Bankes died in 1981, he left Kingston Lacy and its estates in Purbeck to the National Trust.

“Beside the magnificent paintings, furniture and other works of art which suddenly would be available for the public to see, the house also contained the Bankes Archive, a major collection of documents dating from the 1600s to the 20th century.

“The archives were taken to Dorset History Centre in Dorchester, where they were carefully catalogued and made available to the public.

“It was during this process that the missing portion of the minutes was found. The main portion from 1646-1650 had been published in 1902, but this section covering March and April 1646 was an unexpected and exciting find.”

The minutes show records of daily business, including charges for feeding Parliamentary soldiers, seizing horses from local people for the military, selling the goods of people whose property had been confiscated, cutting down their timber and harvesting their crops.

Civil War-era letters of members of the Strangways family form the second part of the book, almost entirely written by women.

Whilst men were away fighting, imprisoned, or in exile abroad, their wives remained behind to keep an eye on their houses and land, or in many cases, to petition the standing committee for the return of their property and relief from heavy fines.

The original documents have been damaged in places, which makes them hard to decipher, therefore the society has published them in a hardback volume in modern typeface.

The launch of the book at Dorset History Centre will take place on Saturday, May 18 at 2pm. The book is priced at £14.95.

It is available from Dorset History Centre, Bridport Road, Dorchester, DT1 1RP; www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/libraries-history-culture/dorset-history-centre