Dorchester History

Dorsets county town, Dorchester, lies on the River Frome among countryside that is emphatically Thomas Hardy Country. The writer was born a few miles from here at Higher Bockhampton and spent much of his life in Dorchester, or Casterbridge as it is known in his novels, at Max Gate on the Wareham Road.

Dorchester has much more than its famous literary connection to offer the visitor as its history as a settlement stretches back over 4,000 years. Two miles south of the town centre is Maiden Castle earthwork, which dates back to 2,000 BC when Stone Age farmers lived there and worked the land.

Most of the town dates from the 17th and 18th centuries as medieval Dorchester was largely destroyed by a series of fires. One of the buildings to survive is Judge Jeffreys lodgings in High West Street. In the late 17th century the notorious Bloody Assizes were held in the town following the unsuccessful Monmouth Rebellion. Three hundred townsfolk were condemned to death and many of their heads impaled on the local church railings to warn others against treason.