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Dorchester

 

Town (pop., 1995 est.: 16,171) and county seat of Dorset, England. On the River Frome, the ancient town was a sizable Roman British centre, and many remains of the period have been found. By 1086 it was a royal borough, and a castle had been built by the 12th century; the Franciscan priory, founded before 1331, is thought to have been constructed from its ruins. The town is now a marketplace serving an extensive rural area. Thomas Hardy was born near Dorchester, the "Casterbridge" of his Wessex novels.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Dorchester
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Dorchester (dôr'chĭstər), town (1991 pop. 13,734), county seat of Dorset, S central England. Dorchester is a busy agricultural market, especially for sheep and lambs. Printing, leatherworking, brewing, and the manufacture of agricultural machinery are important industries. Nearby is Maiden Castle, a fortification originally built in prehistoric times. In Roman times, Dorchester was called Durnovaria; Maumbury Rings, another pre-Roman site, was used by the Romans as an amphitheater. Baron Jeffreys of Wem held his Bloody Assizes in the town in 1685. It was also the site of the 1834 trial of the "Tolpuddle Martyrs," important in the history of British trade unionism. Thomas Hardy lived in Dorchester, which is the "Casterbridge" of his Wessex novels.


Wikipedia: Dorchester
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Dorchester may refer to:

Contents

Geography

England
  • Dorchester, Dorset, the traditional county town of Dorset; central to the organisation of the emigration of Puritans to North America during the 17th century
  • Dorchester, Oxfordshire, also known as Dorchester-on-Thames
Canada
United States

Business

Military

People

Religion

Ships

Sports

Structures

Transportation

  • Dorchester Boulevard, a thoroughfare located in Westmount, Quebec, and formerly in Montreal where it has been renamed René-Lévesque Boulevard

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dorchester" Read more