, where there
is a Perpendicular church noted for its fine tower with elaborate
gargoyles. The old Norman font and north porch are also noteworthy.
Close to the church is an ancient Manor-house with a fine tithe barn.
This belonged in 1590 to the famous Elizabethan, Sir Francis
Walsingham. Maiden Newton is a junction on the Great Western with a
branch line to Bridport.

The beautiful churchyard is the best thing about Maiden Newton. The
village had seen, prior to the late war, a good deal of rebuilding;
relative unattractiveness is the consequence. This seems to be the
almost inevitable result of the establishment of a railway junction.
The church stands on the site of a Wrest Saxon building, and is partly
Norman with much Perpendicular work. Cattistock, a long mile north, is
unspoilt and pretty both in itself and its situation. It has a fine
church, much rebuilt and gaudily decorated, with a tower containing no
less than thirty-five bells and a clock face so enormous that it
occupies a goodly portion of the wall.

If the railway is not taken one may return by the eight miles of high
road that follows the Frome through Vanchurch and Frampton to
Charminster and Dorchester. The first named village though pleasant
enough, calls for little comment, but Frampton (or Frome town) is not
only picturesquely placed between the soft hills that drop to the
wooded banks of the river, but has also other claims to notice. The
church, though it has been cruelly pulled about, has an interesting
old stone pulpit with carvings of monks bearing vessels. A number of
memorials may be seen of the Brownes, once a renowned local family,
and of their successors and connexions, among whom were certain of the
Sheridan family, of which the famous Richard Brinsley Sheridan was a
member. Near Frampton in the closing years of the eighteenth century a
Roman pavement was discovered, bearing in its mosaic indications of
Christian designs and forms.

The straight and tree-lined Roman road that runs west from Dorchester
is, except for fast motor traffic and a few farm waggons bringing
produce to the great emporium of Dorset, usually deserted, for it has
no villages of importance on the fourteen miles to Bridport.
Winterbourne Abbas is more than four miles away and Kingston Russell,
exactly half-way to Bridport, is the only other village on the road.
This was once the home of the Russells who became Dukes of Bedford.
Here was born Sir T.M. Hardy and her