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Dorchester

Dorchester is a market town in southern central Dorset, England, on the River Frome at the junction of the A35 and A37 roads, 20 miles (32 km) west of Poole and 8 miles (13 km) north of Weymouth.

In 2001 the town had a population of 16,171. There were 7,386 dwellings in 2001 and 205 shops in 1991. Dorchester has been the county town of Dorset since 1305.

A market is held on Wednesdays. Major employers include Dorset County Council, West Dorset District Council and Dorset County Hospital.

The town has two private schools, three first schools, two middle schools and one upper school. The upper school, The Thomas Hardye School, can trace its origins back to 1569, when it was founded by a Dorchester merchant of that name. The Dorset County Museum is centrally located in a Gothic-style building.

Local author and poet Thomas Hardy based the fictional town of Casterbridge on Dorchester.

Hardy's childhood home is to the east of the town, and his house in town, Max Gate, is owned by the National Trust and open to the public.

William Barnes, the local dialect poet, was Rector of Winterborne Came, a small hamlet near Dorchester, for 24 years until his death in 1886, and ran a school in the town.

Statues of both men stand in the town centre; Barnes is outside St Peter's Church and Hardy's beside the Top o' Town crossroads. Cecil Day Lewis is buried in Stinsford, one mile (1.6 km) from Dorchester. Hardy is buried in London, but his heart was removed and buried in Stinsford.

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