Dorchester

“ It would be night before he reached Dorchester; but there was a moon, and he knew every yard of high road, every grassy ride across the wide barren heath between Cheriton and the old Roman city. He knew the road and he knew his horse, which was as good of its kind as there was to be found in the county of Dorset. He was not a rich man, and he had to work hard for his living, but he was the son of a well-to-do father, and he never stinted the price of the horse that carried him, and which was something more to Theodore Dalbrook than most men’s horses are to them. ”

“ All the incidents in Dorchester’s history seem insignificant beside the tremendous melodrama of the ‘Bloody Assize.’ The stranger has eyes and ears for little else than the story of that terrible time, and longs to see the Court where Jeffreys sat, mad with drink and disease, and sentenced the unhappy prisoners to floggings, slavery, or death. ”

“ He and my mother saw, from Maumbury, about 1832, the Princess Victoria with her mother, passing in their carriage on the way to Weymouth. My brother, since 1880 Bishop in Mid-China, recalls the bringing into the town, in carts, about 1834, of loads of saplings sent to be planted along the London Road; and a noble avenue they made, which now, alas! is no more than a relic of itself.
I just remember the days of the stage coaches in Dorchester. I see the old Emerald still, and hear the bugle of the guard. In 1852 I travelled by coach to Dorchester from Bath. ”

“ The still meadows that lie around this landlocked haven are green with the growth of centuries; and over the golden corn waving freely on the upland slopes, or above the lavender fields of Broadstone, the lark in summer air is singing. Quietly, with clear spaces of light above them, in silver lapses under the darkening trees, the little rivers thread the fertile valleys, and the Frome runs eastwards from Dorchester, linking, as with a liquid thread, the far-famed county town with the equally ancient maritime port of Wareham. ”

“ If they find the good people of Dorchester are awake, as the noise shows, they will swarm all over the neighbourhood like wasps after honey, to plunder the isolated houses and farms, and carry off all they can ”

“ Coming into Dorchester, the road traverses the water-meadows of the Frome, over the spot called Ten Hatches, and across the little bridges that were the scene of Henchard’s despair, in26 The Mayor of Casterbridge. “Casterbridge,” as everyone familiar with Wessex knows, is Dorchester—and an excellent name, too, for this grave town of early British and Roman antecedents. It would be vain to pretend that Dorchester is picturesque. If you expect in it nodding gables, and half-timbered fifteenth-century buildings to be the note of it, you will experience a disappointment in seeing the real thing. ”

“ As the tourist must have a centre, a starting-off place for his various excursions, the visitor to the Hardy country cannot do better than make his headquarters at Dorchester, the Durnovaria of the Romans and the "Casterbridge" of the novels.
Alighting at either of the railway stations, for the town is well served by both the Great Western and the South Western Companies, the visitor who has learned that Dorchester occupies the site of an important town of the Romans will probably receive a shock at the prevailing note of modernity that confronts him on every side. ”

“ It must have been with a ferocious satisfaction that Jeffreys arrived here to open that Assize, for Dorchester had been a ‘malignant’ town and a thorn in the side of the Royalists forty years before. A kind of wild retribution was to fall upon it now, not only for the share that this district of the West had in Monmouth’s Rebellion in this unhappy year, but for the Puritanism of a bygone generation. ”

“ Just above Dorchester, on the Berkshire side, stands the peculiar isolated twin height which forms so conspicuous a landmark when one gazes over the plain from the summit of the Downs. Such landmarks often helped to trace the old roads. And Dorchester has also an immemorial antiquity—a pre-historic fortification upon the hills above, and fortifications, probably historic, on the Oxford bank below, but Dorchester has no ford.
When all the evidence is weighed it seems more probable that the regular crossing from the Berkshire Hills to the Chilterns was effected at Streatley. ”

“ Dorchester is surrounded by chalk uplands, and it is, no doubt, because there were few forests to clear that the entire neighbourhood is remarkable for its Roman and British remains. The trees around the town have fortunately been sedulously planted and preserved, and the avenues of sycamores and chestnuts on the site of the old rampart have somewhat of a Continental character. The well-defined remains of ancient camps are numerous on the slopes overlooking the Frome, Maiden Castle and the Roman amphitheatre being wonderfully perfect in their typical character. ”

“ Truly they will reward the amateur of scenery: the lofty ridge whose summit is reached three parts of the way revealing widespreading views out to sea on the left, and over wonderful hills and vales inland on the right. You have a taste of what this route is like immediately after leaving Dorchester and its western avenue behind, for cresting the sky-line of the downs on the left are the giant prehistoric earthworks of Maiden Castle, glooming darkly upon the road. ”

“ It has been said that the Dorchester in the Wessex novels had no suburbs; the North Street ended abruptly in a mill by the river; the South Street came to an end in a cornfield—but these bounds have been leaped over in several places, and to-day the east, or Fordington side of the town (Mr. Hardy’s Durnover) alone remains unchanged ”

“ A decade later Miss Burney (Mme. D’Arblay) gives a lively picture of Dorchester as she saw it when travelling in [Pg 151] the suite of George III. to Weymouth: “The city had so antique an air, I longed to investigate its old buildings. The houses have the most ancient appearance of any that are inhabited that I have happened to see; and inhabited they were indeed! There was an amazing quantity of indigenous residers—old women and young children,” who, as she shrewdly remarks, could not have come in from a distance, and so formed an index of population. ”

“ They took him to Dorchester, and as he was unable to use sword or lance again, he consented to take the vows, and become a novice. He found his vocation, and is now, I am told, happy and useful, fervent in his ministrations amongst the poor and helpless; but he has never yet been here.
"And now, Osric, my son," for the youth sat as one stunned, "what is it that I hear of thee?—that thou art, like a cannibal, [25] preying upon thine own people; that thy hand is foremost in every deed of violence and bloodshed; that thou art a willing slave of the murderer of thy kindred. ”

“ There is an incongruity about it that lends an added charm to what is in itself a stupendously beautiful affair.
Dorchester House, one of the finest residences in London, is now the home of our own ambassador, and is thrown open for a great reception on the afternoon of every Fourth of July.
As my hansom took its place in the long line of waiting carriages I glanced up at the noble old stone mansion, and was thrilled with a new sort of patriotism when I saw our own Stars and Stripes wave grandly out against the blue English sky. Our flag at home is a blessed, matter-of-fact affair ”

“ Dorchester is not only the capital of Dorset: it is also the chief town of the Hardy Country. The ancient capital of Wessex was Winchester: the chief seat of this literary domain is here, beside the Frome. Four miles distant from it the novelist was born, and at Max Gate, Fordington, looking down upon Dorchester’s roofs, he resides.
The old country life still closely encircles the county town, and on market-days takes the place by storm ”

“ Moule, writing in 1893, says: “Roman work of one kind and another has been found here in Dorset in eighty places, and that for the most part casually.” But year after year this number is increased, and, truth to tell, so frequent are the discoveries that in Dorchester the ordinary labourer, when excavating in the streets, or elsewhere, is ever on the alert, and many a treasure rewards his watchful care ”

“ Ten years later,1696 a colony of Congregationalists, from Dorchester, in Massachusetts, ascended the Ashley almost to its head, and founded the town of Dorchester, in the present parish of St. George, Dorchester. This was a village of considerable note during the Revolution, but it is now deserted, and little remains of the past but the primitive church and the graves around it.
Under various leaders, men of every creed and of various countries went to South Carolina ”

“ It is doubtful if any town in England has so many remains of the remote past in its vicinity as Dorchester. Probably the Roman settlement of Durnovaria was a parvenu town to the Celts, whose closely adjacent Dwrinwyr was also an upstart in comparison with the fortified stronghold two miles away to the south; the "place by the black water" being an initial attempt to establish a trading centre by a people rather timidly learning from their Phoenician visitors. ”

“ Attendant modern churches and chapels, and the Town Hall, with spires, act as satellites. To the right hand, rising bulky from the huddled mass of houses, is a grey building which but a little experience of touring in England identifies without need of inquiry as the gaol.
Dorchester, figuring as the “Casterbridge” of that mayor whose surprising history is set forth in that powerful story, bulks large in the whole series of Wessex novels—as how could it fail of doing, seeing that the novelist himself was born at Upper Bockhampton, only three miles away? ”

“ Dorchester, like Wallingford, was a city in ancient British times; it was then called Caer Doren, “the city on the water.” In more recent times the Romans formed a great camp here, the fortifications surrounding which now seem like low, even hills. In Saxon days it was the capital of Wessex. It is very old, and it was very strong and great once. Now it sits aside from the stirring world, and nods and dreams.
Round Clifton Hampden, itself a wonderfully pretty village, old-fashioned, peaceful, and dainty with flowers, the river scenery is rich and beautiful. ”

“ Now that the war was over, Dorchester returned to his studies. ‘From his youth he was always much addicted to books; and when he came from Cambridge, for many years he seldom studied less than ten or twelve hours a day; so that he had early passed though all manner of learning both divine and human.’ For some time he lived at Worksop Manor, lent him by the Earl of Arundel, as two of his own houses had been ruined by the war. But after the king's death he found there was no living in the country, as every mechanic now thought himself as good as the greatest peer ”

“ In Dorchester itself the chief point of interest is the abbey church of St Peter and St Paul. This consists of a nave of great length, primarily of the transitional Norman period; a choir with arcades of the finest Decorated work; north choir aisle of the close of the 13th century, south choir aisle (c. 1300) and south nave aisle (c. 1320) . The tower (western) is an erection of the late 17th century. ”

“ Never had the way between Dorchester and Cheriton Chase looked lovelier than in this morning atmosphere; never had the cattle grouped themselves into more delightful pictures amidst those shallow waters which reflected the sky; never had the lights and shadows been fairer upon those level meadows and yonder broken hills. Theodore Dalbrook loved every bit of that familiar landscape; and even to-day, amidst the horror and wonder of his distracted thoughts, he had a dim sense of surrounding beauty, as of something seen in a dream. ”

“ But the tale went forth that the cunning canons of Dorchester had given them another body than that of the saint, and their shrine was the object of veneration equally with the rival shrine at Winchester.
Dorchester became successively the seat of two great bishoprics --the one West Saxon, the other Mercian. The first, founded by Birinus, when Wessex extended far north of the Thames, was divided seventy years later into two sees--Winchester and Sherburne. ”

“ The growing lad walked out to Dorchester every Saturday night to spend Sunday at home and attend divine service in the “Dorchester Old Meeting-House,” the same in which I first saw and heard Edward Everett Hale, over forty years later. The youth arose, in all weathers, before the sun on Monday morning in order to be at his place of business at seven o’clock. When he was sixteen, his employer removed to Richmond, Virginia, and took his favorite clerk with him. From Boston to the capital of the Old Dominion was then a fortnight’s journey by the quickest mode of travel. ”

“ It is said that he tore down the walls, but this, almost for certain, was not so; they were too massive to be wrecked without long labour, which the rovers would not care to spend; and there is large evidence for their existence far into the seventeenth century. However, Danish fire and sword must have left the town black and blood-stained within its ramparts. Half a century later, under the Confessor, Dorchester counted 172 houses; the number is recorded in Domesday Book (1085-6) as large, in contrast to the eighty-eight at the date of the survey. ”

“ From thence, Synodune took up the tale and told it to the ancient city of Dorchester, whose monks looked up from cloistered hall and shuddered. The heights of Nettlebed carried forward the fiery signal, and blazing like a comet, told the good burgesses of Henley and Reading that evil days were at hand. The Beacon Hill, above Shirburne Castle, next told the lord of that baronial pile that he might buckle on his armour, and six counties saw the blaze on that beacon height. ”

“ Rochester was certainly believed to have been implicated in the unsuccessful intrigue to detach the king from the influence of the queen and the jesuits by means of his mistress, Catharine Sedley, just created Countess of Dorchester (Macauley, ii. 73, note; Diary and Correspondence, ii. 314, note) . The temporary retirement of Lady Dorchester to Ireland, and the resentment of the queen, palpably diminished his influence. ”