CHILDREN are playing happily – two hold a skipping rope, others grapple, as youngsters do.

It is a scene from a bygone time, no cars on the streets, no road markings or electric scooters…

This is Dorset in 1946, the village of Sydling St Nicholas to be precise, as caught on camera some eight decades ago.

The photograph is part of an exhibition which gives visitors the chance to step back in time, to a Dorset of years ago.

Children playing in Sydling St Nicholas in 1946. Picture: Courtesy of Dorset History Centre

Dorset History Centre houses thousands of photos from bygone eras, from over-dressed Victorian summers and hard-working Edwardian summers, to chilly fetes from the fifties to fun at the fair and sporting lasses from the twenties.

This week, for one day only, there will be a free exhibition showing images drawn from a wide range of archive collections illustrating summers in Dorset over the last 150 years.

The event, on Saturday (August 17), is a unique opportunity to see material, including photographs, slides and postcards, not available in digital format.

People can find out how to look after their own photographic heritage, how to add it to the archives, and how photography has developed through the ages.

There will also a display of more contemporary Dorset photography from the Dorchester Camera Club – itself nearly 90 years old.

And to link with the Dorset Cider festival in the town’s Borough Gardens, there is a film of old-time cider drinkers at Will’s Surgery.

The free exhibition is open from 10am to 3pm at the Dorset History Centre, in Bridport Road, Dorchester. For more information about the centre, visit www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/dorset-history-centre.