Dorchester
Dorchester is the county town of Dorset. If you have ever read Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the Durbervilles’, then in his town of Casterbridge, you will see as a representation of Dorchester itself. Despite the fact that a large proportion of this historic town was decimated by fires in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many of its streets of Georgian buildings remain. Dorchester was founded by the Romans in AD 70 and just outside the town is one of Britain’s most important Roman sites, and Europe’s largest hill fort, Maiden Castle, which dates back to the Iron Age.
Dorchester is regarded as the gateway to the Jurassic Coast and there is a Dinosaur museum in the centre of town which is well worth a visit if you are interested in this type of history. Visitors should also visit the recently renovated Roman Town House museum which as the title informs, houses the only roman house in Britain which is still in it entirety. Dorchester was the home of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, a union of agricultural workers who were tried for swearing oaths in 1834 because trade unions were illegal. The courthouse and prison where they were tried and incarcerated are still in use today. There is a Tolpuddle Martyrs museum in the Athelhampton Area of Dorchester where you can learn about the first union and how they were treated after their transportation to Australia.
