32 WALKS AND AVENUES OF DORCHESTER. 



to the town of Dorchester. It was presented and agreed 

 that she, the said Lora Pitt, should pay into the hands of 

 the tenants of the manor the sum of 100 to enable them to 

 bear and pay the charges and expenses of erecting proper 

 wyres and digging trenches, and drains, rendered necessary 

 by the erecting of such causeway, and of maintaining and 

 keeping such wyres, drains, &c., in repair. 



The new road was made and the bridge built and opened 

 in 1748, but the avenue of trees was not planted until many 

 years later, certainly not until after 1779, as Simpson's map 

 of ths Manor does not show them ; but in Taylor's map of 

 Dorset, 1795, the trees are shown. This avenue, therefore, 

 now replaced by younger trees planted at a much greater 

 distance apart, was doubtless planted between the years 

 1780 and 1795. 



A single row of sycamore trees, shown in Simpson's map 

 1779, formerly extended from the South gate to the old 

 Britannia Inn, now the Great Western Hotel. These, with 

 the clump of trees on Beggars' Knap, where now stands 

 " Mentone Lodge," the residence of Mr. Edwin Pope, were 

 removed in 1876, when the frontage to the Fair Field was 

 let off by the Dorchester Corporation for building purposes, 

 much against the wishes of the townspeople, who memorialised 

 the Corporation that they might be allowed to stand. The 

 facts and the memorial are fully set out in a brochure entitled 

 " A mare's nest discovered in the trees on Beggars' Knap," 

 written by the late Mr. G. J. Andrews, of Dorchester, in 1876. 



THE WAREHAM ROAD AVENUE. This avenue is of alternate 

 pink and white horse-chestnut trees, and extends from the 

 bridge over the L. and S.W. Railway to somewhat beyond 

 " Max Gate," the residence of Thomas Hardy, O.M., the 

 Dorset novelist. They were planted in the year 1888, and 

 both the trees and the cost of planting were the gift of the 

 first Lord Alington. 



THE PRINCE OF WALES' ROAD AND CULLIFORD ROAD were 

 planted in 1876 by Messrs. A. and E. Pope, the joint owners 

 of the Prince of Wales' estate. 



