Daniel Defoe, in his whimsical description of his pilgrimage From London to Land's End, published in 1724, gives an entertaining survey of the town at that period. He says: "Dorchester is indeed a pleasant, agreeable town to live in, and where I thought the people seemed less divided in factions and parties than in other places; for though here are divisions, and the people are not all of one mind, either as to religion or politics, yet they did not seem to separate with so much animosity as in other places. Here I saw the Church of England clergyman and the Dissenting minister or preacher drinking tea together, and conversing with civility and good neighbourhood, like Catholic Christians and men of a catholic and extensive charity. The town is populous, though not large; the streets broad; but the buildings old and low. However, there is good company, and a good deal of it; and a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time, and as well, in Dorchester as in any town I know in England.... There are abundance of good families and of very ancient lines in the neighbourhood of this town of Dorchester, as the Napiers, the Courtneys, Strangeways, Seymours, Banks, Tregonwells, Sydenhams, and many others, some of which have very great estates in the county, and in particular Colonel Strangeways (ancestor of the present Earl of Ilchester), Napier (ancestor of the present Lord Arlington) and Courtney."
As to the healthiness of Dorchester, the editors of Hutchins's second edition wrote: "The pleasant and healthy situation of this town deserves an encomium. The famous Doctor Arbuthnot, coming hither in his early days with a view to settle in it, gave as a reason for his departure that 'a physician could neither live nor die in Dorchester.'"
St Peter's Church, a venerable edifice, occupies a prominent position at the intersection of the four streets and rises in its tower to a height of ninety feet. It is a well-proportioned building, with Norman porch and some monuments, with effigies, to Lord Holles of Ifield and to two unknown Crusaders, in coats of mail, with their legs crossed.
In the north wall of the chancel is placed an altar-tomb, which is supposed to be that of the founder. A mural tablet on the south wall commemorates THOMAS HARDY, Esquire, of Melcombe Regis, who founded and endowed the Free Grammar School.
There were two brasses, now lost, one on the chancel floor, on grey stone, over the effigy of a woman kneeling, reading:
"Miserere mei d's s'dum magnum mi'am tuam."
The other:
"Hic jacet Johanna de Sto. Omero, relicta Rob'bi More, qui obiit in vigilia ste. Trinitatis sc'do Die mensis Anno D'ni MCCCCXXXVI. Cuj'. a'ie p'piciet' D. Amen."
Tradition says that the church was erected by "Geoffrey Van, his wife Anne and his maid Nan." Two of the six bells are mediæval. Close to the south porch is a bronze statue of William Barnes. His learning, his writings and poems in the Dorset dialect, his kindliness to his poor and his parish made him universally beloved. The pedestal bears the simple inscription: "William Barnes. 1801-1886," and the following lines from his poem, Culverdell and the Squire:
"Zoo now I hope his kindly feace