nd Wimborne; and Lyme
Regis is the terminus of a light railway from Axminster on the South
Western line.

_Population and Administration._--The area of the ancient county is
632,270 acres, with a population in 1891 of 194,517, and in 1901 of
202,936. The area of the administrative county is 625,578 acres. The
county contains 35 hundreds. It is divided into northern, eastern,
southern and western parliamentary divisions, each returning one member.
It contains the following municipal boroughs--Blandford Forum (pop. 3649),
Bridport (5710), Dorchester, the county town (9458), Lyme Regis (2095),
Poole (19,463), Shaftesbury (2027), Wareham (2003), Weymouth and Melcombe
Regis (19,831). The following are other urban districts--Portland
(15,199), Sherborne (5760), Swanage (3408), Wimborne Minster (3696).
Dorsetshire is in the western circuit, and assizes are held at Dorchester.
It has one court of quarter sessions, and is divided into nine petty
sessional divisions. The boroughs of Bridport, Dorchester, Lyme Regis,
Poole, and Weymouth and Melcombe Regis have separate commissions of the
peace, and the borough of Poole has in addition a separate court of
quarter sessions. There are 289 civil parishes. The ancient county, which
is almost entirely in the diocese of Salisbury, contains 256
ecclesiastical parishes or districts wholly or in part.

_History._--The kingdom of Wessex originated with the settlement of
Cerdic and his followers in Hampshire in 495, and at some time before
the beginning of the 8th century the tide of conquest and colonization
spread beyond the Frome and Kennet valleys and swept over the district
which is now Dorsetshire. In 705 the West Saxon see was transferred to
Sherborne, and the numerous foundations of religious houses which
followed did much to further the social and industrial development of
the county; though the wild and uncivilized state in which the county
yet lay may be conjectured from the names of the hundreds and of their
meeting-places, at barrows, boulders and vales. In 787 the Danes landed
at Portland, and in 833 they arrived at Charmouth with thirty-five ships
and fought with Ecgbert. The shire is first mentioned by name in the
Saxon Chronicle in 845, when the Danes were completely routed at the
mouth of the Parret by the men of Dorsetshire under Osric the ealdorman.
In 876 the invaders captured Wareham, but were driven out next year by
Alfred, and 120 of their ships were wrecked at Swanag