{"id":812328,"date":"2026-10-24T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812328\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T10:30:10","slug":"secret-dorset-how-a-potting-shed-became-a-broadcasting-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/812328\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Dorset: How a potting shed became a broadcasting icon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Old Country lasted for three series and Hargreaves then entered the home video market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He produced a series of 28 programmes under the original title Out of Town and, for these, Jack did his bits to camera from his actual shed at his home in Dorset.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He moved to Belchalwell and he had a barn built in the back field,&#8221; said Wagstaff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;All the films that Southern TV had made were kept in storage. Those films were useless to anybody else so he acquired them. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We went along to his real shed and we filmed the links between those films. He would present to camera and talk a bit about some aspect that was in the shed and then introduce the films.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 1972, Hargreaves was awarded an OBE for his work on the Nugent Report, which looked how land owned by the Ministry of Defence could be returned to public or agricultural use.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The broadcaster died in Dorchester in 1994 and his ashes were reportedly scattered on Bulbarrow hill, just south of his Belchalwell home. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But what became of his shed?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wagstaff says it still survives intact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The shed is still there,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I went back there when the house changed hands and the shed has not been touched, it was the same as it was when we were filming there.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Old Country lasted for three series and Hargreaves then entered the home video market. He produced a series&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-812328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}