with zeal for the public convenience. The
improvement, regrettable on the score of picturesqueness, has given us
the noble view down the London road. The other great highways that
approach the town from the west and south do so through fine avenues
of trees which give a distinctive note to the environs of Dorchester.

Fordington is usually described as a suburb of Dorchester; this is not
strictly correct. It had always been a dependent village and was not
simply an extension of the town. Its church is a fine one, with tall
battlemented tower and a goodly amount of Norman work. A quaint old
carving over the Norman south door is of much interest. It represents
St. George as taking part in the battle of Antioch in 1098. Some of
the Saracens are being mercilessly dispatched while others are
pleading for quarter. The stone pulpit bears the date 1592 and the
initials E.R. The late Bishop of Durham, Dr. Moule, was born at
Fordington Vicarage.

Stainsford, about a mile from the Frome bridge, is the original of the
scene in _Under the Greenwood Tree_. Several members of the Hardy
family lie in the churchyard here, and the novelist was born at Higher
Bockhampton, not far away. The carving of St. Michael on the face of
the church tower should be noticed. Within the building are memorials
of the Pitt family.

Above the short tunnel through which the Great Western line runs to
the north, and about half a mile along the Bradford Peverell road, is
Poundbury Camp. "Pummery" is an oblong entrenchment enclosing about
twenty acres, variously ascribed to Celts, Romans and Danes, but
almost certainly Celtic, with Roman improvements and developments.
There is a fine view of the surroundings of Dorchester from the bank.
It is only by the most strenuous exertions that the railway engineers
were prevented from burrowing right through the camp. The cutting of
this line brought to light many relics of the past, a great number of
which are in the Dorchester Museum.

[Illustration: MAIDEN CASTLE.]

On the south-west side of the town, two miles away near the Weymouth
road, is the greatest of these prehistoric entrenchments; Mai-dun or
"Maiden Castle" is the largest British earthwork in existence. It is
best reached by a footpath continuation of a by-way that leaves the
Weymouth road on the right, soon after it crosses the Great Western
Railway. The highest point of the hill that has been converted into
this huge fort is 432 feet; the apex bein