The Ham Nomads

6 Sep 2014. <GB-ENG> Dorchester, & Cerne Abbas, & Sherbourne, Dorset —

Woke up rather lazily, as we didn't have far to go to our first destination, Max Gate, the house Thomas Hardy designed (he had apprenticed as an architect), built, and lived in until his death. The traffic on the A35 looked rather horrific, and we found out why as we were driving into Dorchester. The Dorset County Show was on here today, and it looked like the entire population of the county was gravitating towards the site. The Garmin was trying to get us to turn onto the one road all the show traffic was taking, so we decided to override it and take the next turnoff. Good choice — the next turnoff took us straight to the front gate of Max Gate.

We wandered the house, found out a lot more about Thomas Hardy and his family, and his circle of friends — which reads like a Who's Who of late 19th century and early 20th century society. For example, the eight pallbearers at his funeral in 1928 were James Barrie, John Galsworthy, Edmund Gosse, A.E. Houseman, Rudyard Kipling and George Bernard Shaw, all representing the literary world; and Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay MacDonald (the prime minister and the leader of the opposition), both representing Parliament. Others who dined at Max Gate included Lady Cynthia Asquith, the sculptor Sir Hamo Thornycroft (whose wife Agatha is said to be the inspiration for Tess of the d'Urbervilles), the poet Robert Graves, and Edward, Prince of Wales.

The National Trust only took over the running of this property about 5 years ago, so it is in the early stages of development. One room, for example, started out as Thomas' study, but then he converted it into his bedroom (putting his study elsewhere in the house), and in fact he died in this room. The Trust has not yet decided whether to present this room as a study or as a bedroom — and they are asking for input from visitors. And the garden, which was considerably disrupted by his second wife Florence after his death, is only just in the planning stages of reconstruction. Nevertheless, we had a most enjoyable time wandering the garden, which is currently a fairly typical English country garden.

We departed Max Gate and Dorchester, going northwards up the A352, to the village of Cerne Abbas. This village is renowned for an old earth carving, cutting the turf away to reveal the white chalk beneath it. Many such carvings are of White Horses, which we intend to visit later, but this one is the "Cerne Giant", a massive human figure cut into the ground.

The problem is, nobody knows its age. There is no reference to the giant in historic documents before 1694. One theory is that it represents Hercules, and is over 1500 years old; another is that it is a caricature of Oliver Cromwell, and is only about 350 years old. Whatever its age, it is 60 metres tall and 51 wide. While we were here, there were church bells pealing across the countryside, and we found that a wedding had just taken place and the reception was in the village hall, right beside where we were parked.

We had lunch in the van, then walked the path up to Giant's Hill — you can't actually get near the carving, as the terrain is too fragile and is being protected most carefully.

After this, we decided to go northwards, towards a White Horse and an Iron Age hillfort at Bratton — but we won't get there today. Instead, we dropped off at Sherbourne Castle, really a country manor built by Sir Walter Raleigh, but which he had to surrender to the crown prior to his execution for treason in 1618 (by which time the castle was in the hands of its new owners, the Digby family). The Digby family (or now the Wingfield Digby family since William Wingfield married Lady Charlotte Digby in 1796) are still in residence, but they have opened the mansion to the public since 1969. The house is fabulous, and worthy of detailed exploration, but the gem of the place is its garden — this one was actually designed by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown between 1753 and 1776.

There is one remnant of Sir Walter Raleigh here — a seat he had constructed that overlooks the road, so he could sit and look over his garden while also watching the traffic on the old road to Dorchester. Talking about weddings, there was one going on here as well — we could hear raucous laughter from the marquee as we walked around the lake — presumably the Best Man was making his speech! We also met this lovely Dorset gentleman, 87 years old and walking his 20-week-old Yorkshire Terrier puppy, Mitzi. Mitzi was the friendliest little pooch you could ever meet, and just loved having her tummy rubbed. Watch out, Bibi — you might well get a sibling when we get home!

Anyway, we left Sherbourne and drove on, just happening on a layby well off the A30 as we were approaching Shaftesbury.

Distance driven — today, 35 miles ( 57 km ); to date, 7,169 miles ( 11,538 km )