272 THE EXETER ROAD 



in at the window from the remainder of the flock 

 bro wising hard by.' 



This peculiarity of Dorchester, a four-square clearly- 

 defined applique of town upon a pastoral country, has 

 been gradually disappearing during many years past, 

 owing to an increase of po23ulation that has burst the 

 ancient bounds imposed by the town being almost 

 completely surrounded by the Duchy of Cornwall 

 lands. This property, known by the name of Ford- 

 ington Field (and not the existence at any time of a 

 ford on the Frome), gives the eastern end of Dor- 

 chester its title. The land, let by the Duchy in olden 

 times, in quarters or ' fourthiugs ' of a carucate, gave 

 the original name of ' Fourthington.' A great deal 

 of this property has now been sold or leased for build- 

 ing purposes, and so the avenues that once clearly 

 defined with their ramparts of greenery the bounds of 

 Dorchester are now of a more urban character. 



Dorchester shares with Blandford and with Marl- 

 borough a solid architectural character of a sober and 

 responsible kind. As in those towais, imaginative 

 Gothic gables and quaint mediaeval fancies are some- 

 what to seek amid the overwhelming proj^ortion of 

 Renaissance, or neo-classic, or merely Queen Anne 

 and Georgian red-brick or stone houses. The cause of 

 this may be sought in the recurrent disastrous fires 

 that on four occasions practically swept the town out 

 of existence, as in the case of Marlborough and Bland- 

 ford. The earliest of these happened in 1613. Over 

 three hundred houses w^ere burnt on that occasion, and 

 property amounting to nearly a quarter of a million 

 sterling lost. This insistent scourge of the West of 



