WJNTERBORNE WHITCHURCH 265 



XXXYII 



Sixteen and a quarter miles of very varied road 

 brouo'ht the old coaclimen with steamino- horses 

 clattering from Blandford into Dorchester, past the 

 villaoes of AVinterborne Whitchurch, Milborne St. 

 Andrew, and the village of Piddletown, which is by 

 no means a town, and never was. 



It is a long, long rise out of Blandford, past tree- 

 shaded Bryanstone and over the Town Bridge, to the 

 crest of Charlton Downs, a mile out ; where, looking 

 back, the town is seen lying in a wooded hollow 

 almost surrounded by park-like trees in dense clumps 

 — the woods of Bryanstone. From this point of van- 

 tage it is clearly seen how Blandford is entered down- 

 hill from east or west. 



Very hilly, very open, very white and hot and 

 dusty in summer, and covered with loose stones and 

 flints after any spell of dry weather, the road goes 

 hence steeply down into Winterborne Whitchurch, 

 where the ' bourne,' from wdiich the place takes the 

 first half of its name, goes across the road in a hollow^ 

 and the church stands, with its neighbouring parsonage 

 and cottages, in a lane running at right angles to the 

 high-road, for all the world like Tarrant Hinton and 

 Little Wallop. John W^esley, the grandfather of the 

 founder of the ' Wesleyans ' — or the ' Methodys,' as 

 the country people call Methodists — was Vicar of 

 Winterborne Whitchurch for a time during the 

 Commonwealth ; but as he seems never to have been 

 regularly ordained, he was thrown out at the Restora- 



