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Dorset |
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Dorset, county (1991 pop. 645,200), 1,025 sq mi (2,655 sq km), SW England, on the English Channel. The county seat is Dorchester Dorchester (dôr`chĭstər), town (1991 pop. 13,734), county seat of Dorset, S central England. ..... Click the link for more information. . The rolling country is crossed by the North Dorset and South Dorset downs, chalk ranges running east and west. The rocky coastline has a harbor at Poole Poole, town (1991 pop. 122,815), Dorset, S England, on the north side of Poole Harbour. Poole has shipbuilding, pottery-making, and other industries. It is a naval supply station and a seaplane base with considerable coastal trade. There is also a technical college. ..... Click the link for more information. . The fertile valleys (the Vale of Blackmore, the Stour, and the Frome) are devoted to agriculture. Sheep, cattle, pigs, and poultry are raised, and barley, kale, wheat, oats, beans, and peas are grown. There is also dairy farming. Portland Portland, town (1991 pop. 12,945), Dorset, S England. It is on the Isle of Portland, a small rocky peninsula. Portland stone has been used in St. Paul's Cathedral and other important London buildings. Lobsters and crabs are harvested. There is a naval base in Portland harbor. ..... Click the link for more information. and Purbeck Purbeck, Isle of, peninsula, c.12 mi (20 km) long and c.8 mi (13 km) wide, Dorset, S England, between Poole Harbour and the English Channel. St. Albans Head is the most southerly point of the rocky shore. Ranges of chalk hills cross the peninsula from east to west. ..... Click the link for more information. marble are quarried in Dorset. Tourism is increasingly important to the economy; Bournemouth Bournemouth (bôrn`məth), city (1991 pop. 142,849) and district, Dorset, S central England, on Poole Bay. ..... Click the link for more information. has been a resort since the late 19th cent. The county's pre-Roman antiquities include Maiden Castle Maiden Castle, prehistoric fortress, Dorset, S England, near Dorchester. The finest earthwork in the British Isles, c.120 acres (50 hectares) in area, is there. ..... Click the link for more information. . Dorset, also known as Dorsetshire, was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex Wessex (wĕs`ĭks), one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England. ..... Click the link for more information. . Thomas Hardy Hardy, Thomas, 1840–1928, English novelist and poet, b. near Dorchester, one of the great English writers of the 19th cent. The son of a stonemason, he derived a love of music from his father and a devotion to literature from his mother. ..... Click the link for more information. was born there and treats the region in some of his novels. In 1974 the county was reorganized as a nonmetropolitan county, and a section of Hampshire was added. DorsetAdministrative (pop., 2001: 390,986), geographic, and historic county, southwestern England. It is located on the English Channel; its county seat is Dorchester. Prehistoric peoples were active in the area and left abundant monuments dating from the Neolithic Period, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, including Maiden Castle, a huge earthworks just outside Dorchester. The area subsequently became part of the West Saxon kingdom. As Wessex, it appears in the writings of Thomas Hardy. Dorset a county in SW England, on the English Channel: mainly hilly but low-lying in the east: the geographical and ceremonial county includes Bournemouth and Poole, which became independent unitary authorities in 1997. Administrative centre: Dorchester. Pop. (excluding unitary authorities): 398 200 (2003 est.). Area (excluding unitary authorities): 2544 sq. km (982 sq. miles) How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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The woods, the rivers, the lawns of Devon and of Dorset, attract the eye of the ingenious traveller, and retard his pace, which delay he afterwards compensates by swiftly scouring over the gloomy heath of Bagshot, or that pleasant plain which extends itself westward from Stockbridge, where no other object than one single tree only in sixteen miles presents itself to the view, unless the clouds, in compassion to our tired spirits, kindly open their variegated mansions to our prospect. Then there is the Fortune Theatre near Cripplegate, and, most charming of all, two views--street and river fronts--the Duke's Theatre, Dorset Garden, in Fleet Street, designed by Wren, decorated by Gibbons--graceful, naive, dainty, like the work of a very refined Palladio, working minutely, perhaps more delicately than at Vicenza, in the already crowded city on the Thames side. This first tragedy was written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset. |
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