Dorchester, Dorset : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Dorchester. You may be able to find further references to Dorchester in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Dorchester capital of county, municipal borough, and market town Bartholomew
DORCHESTER a town, three parishes, a sub-district, a district, and a division Imperial

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Dorchester within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Daniel Defoe Letter 3, Part 2: Salisbury and Dorset 9
William Camden Dorset and Somerset 7
Celia Fiennes Wiltshire and Dorset 2
William Cobbett Sept. 29th to Oct. 2nd, 1826: Ryall to Burghclere 1
Charles Wesley Sept. 9 - Dec. 31, 1737: Oxfordshire, and down to Devon 1
Celia Fiennes 1698 Tour: Exeter to London 1
Thomas Pennant Towcester to Redborn 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
West Fordington 0 1
Fordington 1 2
Winterborne Faringdon 0 1
George 0 2
Winterborne Herringston 0 2
Winterborne Monkton 0 2
Winterborne Came 0 2
Stinsford 0 2
West Stafford 0 2
Kingston 0 3
Whitcombe 0 2
Bradford Peverell 0 2
Charminster 0 2
Winterborne St Martin 0 3
Broadmayne 0 2
West Knighton 0 2
Bincombe 0 2
Upwey 0 3
Culliford Tree 0 2
Wabyhouse 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Dorchester. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
DORCHESTER John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
DUNIUM William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
DURNIUM William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
DURNOVARIA William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.