Dorchester (Dorset)
Dorchester is a city in the southwestern English county of Dorset. It belongs to the district of West Dorset and is the administrative seat of the county.
Dorchester lies on the River Frome about 35 km west of Poole and about 8 km north of Weymouth. The city has 16,171 inhabitants (2002); in the catchment area population of about 40,000 people. On the western edge is Poundbury, one among others designed by Prince Charles model village.
History
About 3 km south-west of the city center is called a fortress from the Iron Age Maiden Castle. Only after taking these ramparts, one of the largest in pre-Roman times, was the Romans and their invasion of Saxony in Dorset as successful.
Dorchester itself, which was originally called Durnovaria, was founded by the Romans in 70 AD. Remains of the Roman city walls and the foundation walls of the town hall have been preserved until today. On the southern outskirts there Maumbury, a Neolithic stone circle that was used by the Romans as an amphitheater.
In the 17th century Dorchester was a center of the Puritan emigration to North America, the va was supported by Rev. John White (see also Dorchester Company). Some emigrants from Dorchester founded the town of Dorchester in Massachusetts.
After the death of King Charles II, whose illegitimate son, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, his uncle James II as the successor of Charles tried to oust from the throne. As part of the Monmouth Rebellion (also Pitchfork Rebellion ) failed James Scott taking Dorchester and 300 of his men were sentenced by Judge George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys to death or sent into exile. This process is known as the Bloody Assizes.
Large parts of Dorchester were destroyed by two major fires in the years 1613 and 1725. Nevertheless, can be found in the city center a few medieval buildings and the built in Tudor style workhouse.
In 1834 it came to the Tolpuddle Martyrs: 6 farm workers in Tolpuddle founded a farm workers union. Since they did this in the form of a secret society, they were taken to Dorchester in court, because at this time the trade unions were already legal, but not collusion. The trial and the sentence of banishment to Australia sparked protests across the UK and there was a petition with 800,000 signatures to parliament. Through the actions of the unions, the government revised the sentence again. It is one of the first major events of the trade union movement in Europe. Every year this event is celebrated by the Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival with a march through Tolpuddle.
Attractions
- The writer Thomas Hardy, whose home was Dorchester, designed the fictitious place Casterbridge along the lines of Dorchester. His house in the city ( Max Gate ) can be visited.
- Another famous son of the city 's Thomas Masterman Hardy, an admiral, Lord Nelson was among others in the naval battles of the Nile and Trafalgar under the supreme command. He is the 22 m high Hardy Monument in honor of a hill in the southeast of the city.
- The Keep Military Museum is reminiscent of regiments that had their home in Dorset.
Traffic
In Dorchester, there are two train stations. The South Western Main Line connects the city to London and Southampton. With the trains of the Heart of Wessex Line Westbury, Bath and Bristol can be reached.
Sons and daughters of the town
- Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), writer
- Frederick Treves (1853-1923), Surgeon
- Tom Roberts (1856-1936), painter
- Maurice Evans (1901-1989), actor
- Geoffrey Hutchings (1939-2010), actor
Twin Cities
Dorchester graduated in 1959 twinned with Bayeux, as soldiers of the Dorset Regiment liberated the French city in 1944 by the German occupation. Other sister cities are in Germany and since 1992 Holbæk in Denmark since 1973 Luebbecke.