Community begins
The Post Green Community grew out of Faith and Tom Lees’ desire to offer help to strangers in need, not just through care and support in their own home, Post Green House, but through other Christian leaders living in buildings which the Lees owned in the Lytchett Minster and later at Holton Lee.
Community housing
In the 1970s, volunteers began renovating Holton farmhouse and preparing the land to accommodate twice-yearly Christian camps.
Camps
By the early 1980s the Post Green Community, now joined by members of the American Community of Celebration, numbered 120 people, Most of those who joined the Community had come to know it through the Bible camps or courses and were attracted by the love and care shown.
Work & money
The lifestyle was sacrificial – working members put their earnings into a ‘common purse’ to share with those who couldn’t work, and changed jobs as the need demanded. Food was sometimes scarce and always cheap, and members grew very inventive in making ingredients go a long way!
Daily life
Every day started and ended with prayer, often accompanied by exuberant music, drama and dancing, and people from every Christian denomination or none were equally welcome – inclusiveness that was unusual at the time.
About the Oral Histories project
Livability Holton Lee bring you this Oral Histories project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, which culminates in a mini exhibition in June. You can see it at Wareham Town Hall on Saturday the 15th June 9am-1pm and at Livability Holton Lee’s community fair from 11am-4pm on the 14th September.
The project is brought to life by Flourish participants who have been trained to interview and film stories to illustrate the site’s heritage on ipads. The project has spoken to historians, archaeologists, members of the Lees family and the Post Green Community.
Flourish is an Ecotheraphy project based at Livability Holton Lee.
The videos the following pages each reflect an era of Holton Lee’s history. Navigate through the eras to learn more about what many refer to as a ‘magical place’. You can find more by visiting the exhibition.
Why Holton Lee?
Archaeological digs in 2000 and 2011 show that the site has been active farmland since Saxon times and is identified in the 1086 Domesday Book as being assigned to a Norman Lord.
The project seeks to capture the stories of the people that came together and transformed the site from farmland to the therapeutic wellbeing centre it is today.
The exhibition will be on display at Livability Holton Lee’s 350 acre nature reserve in Dorset.
Click here to read an introduction to our heritage
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