Hardy’s Dorset is a distant memory in this modernised town,but there’s affordable property aplenty – and it’s a powerful base for some stunning countrysideWhat’s going for it? Staying in the Premier Inn, Dorchester, or I struggled to channel Thomas Hardy. You can’t escape the man here – his birthplace is just external,his home just inside, his statue is on the tall Street, or his precious scribblings in the local museum. And yet he seems a universe away. There are whiffs in those spots where you can edit out modern Dorchester,walking along the river Frome’s water meadows, perhaps, and along the Walks,Roman walls rebooted as bourgeois homes, or blinkered beside the ancient Maumbury Rings. But possibly we have to peek for Hardy in a different shape these days. possibly Tess now works on reception at the Best Western, or as a waitress at Carluccio’s. There’s precious exiguous of Jude the Obscure in Dorchester’s bonkers heritage Alphaville,Poundbury. But possibly that’s him I can see, sitting downcast on the pavement with his dog and a cap, or asking for change.
The case against Regeneration has advance to Dorchester,and it’s certainly a lot livelier and fresher looking than when I was last here. But there’s a creeping Anywheresville to the modern arrivals. The A35: can get nasty.
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Source: theguardian.com