Museum, but his incumbency at Whitcombe and the small addition to his income obtained in other ways did not amount altogether to a “living” and he was forced to take up schooling to make both ends meet.  The poems were never a financial success, though they always received a chorus of praise and appreciation and led many literary lions to meet the author.  After years full of sordid cares Barnes was granted a civil list pension and the rectory of Came.  Here, in the midst of the peasantry he loved so well, this gentle spirit passed away in 1886.

The lodging occupied by Judge Jeffreys during the Monmouth Rebellion trials or “Bloody Assize” (1685), when seventy-four were sentenced to death on Gallows Hill of dreadful memory, and 175 to transportation to carry westward with them the bitter seeds that bore glorious fruit a century later, was in a house still standing nearly opposite the museum.  This almost brings the list of historical buildings in Dorchester to a close.  The County Hall, Town Hall and Corn Exchange, all unpretentious and quietly dignified, represent both shire and town.  The few buildings left by the seventeenth-century fire seem to have included a highly picturesque group near the old Pump (now marked by an obelisk) and at the commencement of High East Street, where a dwelling-house went right across the highway.  This was pulled down by a corporation filled with zeal for the public convenience.  The improvement, regrettable on the score of picturesqueness, has given us the noble view down the London road.  The other great highways that approach the town from the west and south do so through fine avenues of trees which give a distinctive note to the environs of Dorchester.

Fordington is usually described as a suburb of Dorchester; this is not strictly correct.  It had always been a dependent village and was not simply an extension of the town.  Its church is a fine one, with tall battlemented tower and a goodly amount of Norman work.  A quaint old carving over the Norman south door is of much interest.  It represents St. George as taking part in the battle of Antioch in 1098.  Some of the Saracens are being mercilessly dispatched while others are pleading for quarter.  The stone pulpit bears the date 1592 and the initials E.R.  The late Bishop of Durham, Dr. Moule, was born at Fordington Vicarage.

Stainsford, about a mile from the Frome bridge, is the original of the scene in Under the Greenwood Tree.  Several members of the Hardy family lie in the churchyard here, and the novelist was born at Higher Bockhampton, not far away.  The carving of St. Michael on the face of the church tower should be noticed.  Within the building are memorials of the Pitt family.

Above the short tunnel through which the Great Western line runs to the north, and about half a mile along the Bradford Peverell road, is Poundbury Camp.  “Pummery” is an oblong entrenchment enclosing about twenty acres, variously ascribed to Celts, Romans and Danes, but almost certainly Celtic, with Roman improvements and developments.  There is a fine view of the surroundings of Dorchester from the bank.  It is only by the most strenuous exertions that the railway engineers were prevented from burrowing right through the camp.  The cutting of this line brought to light many relics of the past, a great number of which are in the Dorchester Museum.