CHAPTER IV
“UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE”—DORCHESTER—MAIDEN CASTLE—BRIDPORT—WEST BAY
From Warmwell Cross the route into Dorchester may advantageously be varied by bearing to the right, through the very pretty village of West Stafford, where there is an interesting church, and an inn with a deprecatory set of verses, beginning:
I trust no Wise Man will condemn
A Cup of Genuine now and then.
Pleasant by-roads lead across tributaries of the Frome and into Stinsford, which is in the heart of the Hardy Country, about two miles from Dorchester. It is a secluded place amid massed woods and at the edge of the fine park surrounding Kingston House. Stinsford is the “Mellstock” of that sweet idyll Under the Greenwood Tree.
Wareham Church.
The church of St. Martin, perched boldly on its terrace above the road on the north side of the town, has a striking Saxon interior.
Beyond it we gain the highroad that leads down on the left into Dorchester. The right-hand route conducts up Yellowham Hill to Piddletown; or the stranger may on some summer day be well content to lose himself in the sylvan wilds in the valley of the Frome, through the hamlet of Upper Bockhampton, where the rustic cottage that was the birthplace of Thomas Hardy may be seen on the very verge of the open, under Ilsington Woods. There, where the blue wood-smoke from rustic chimneys ascends amid dense foliage, and where the swart heaths begin, he learned his “wood-notes wild.” Piddletown Church, with its monuments of the Martins of Athelhampton, and the fine Jacobean minstrel gallery, is well worth seeing, for its own sake and for its associations in the Wessex novels, in which it figures prominently as “Weatherbury.” At Lower Walterstone, about one mile north, is the beautiful Jacobean farmhouse described in Far from the Madding Crowd as the home of Bathsheba Everdene.
Coming into Dorchester, the road traverses the water-meadows of the Frome, over the spot called Ten Hatches, and across the little bridges that were the scene of Henchard’s despair, in The Mayor of Casterbridge. “Casterbridge,” as everyone familiar with Wessex knows, is Dorchester—and an excellent name, too, for this grave town of early British and Roman antecedents. It would be vain to pretend that Dorchester is picturesque. If you expect in it nodding gables, and half-timbered fifteenth-century buildings to be the note of it, you will experience a disappointment in seeing the real thing. For the general aspect of the town is one of Georgian four-square respectability, and sky-lines are apt to be horizontal instead of at acute angles. There are, however, older things by far at Dorchester. At Fordington, for instance, which is an integral part of the town, there have been discovered Roman remains, as, indeed, they have been plentifully unearthed all in and about the borough. The tympanum over the south door of the parish church is exceptionally well worth inspection. It is a very remarkable example of Norman sculpture, and represents the miraculous appearance of St. George on horseback at the Battle of Dorylæum. The figures are full of life and vigour, except those represented as being dead, and they look very dead indeed. St. George is shown in the act of thrusting his lance into the mouth of one of the enemy, who vainly endeavours to pluck it out. At the back are two others of the foe, stricken with fear at this horrible sight, and praying on their knees for mercy. The peculiar interest of this sculpture lies in the fact that all the actors in this scene are represented in Norman chain-mail.
