Save Our Countryside! - Take a Walk for STAND (Save the Area North of Dorchester)
Developers want to build an urban area larger than Poundbury on Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd country.
Treasures of Thomas Hardy's World
Casterbridge was the name given to Dorchester by the writer, Thomas Hardy, in his novels The Mayor of Casterbridge, Under the Greenwood Tree and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Hardy’s descriptions of Casterbridge and Mellstock (Stinsford) draw people from around the world to visit Dorset.
Walk up to Waterston Ridge and you will discover the landscape of one of Hardy’s best loved novels, Far From the Madding Crowd. Waterston Manor is the setting for Bathsheba Everdene’s farm and Wolfeton Manor was used by Hardy as the home of Lady Penelope, one of the Group of Noble Dames. Find Fiddler’s Green and you can discover Shepherd Fennel’s cottage, Higher Crowstairs, from the evocative short story The Three Strangers published in Wessex Tales.
Threatened:
The wide open downland of Bathsheba's Farm will be lost forever under concrete and tarmac Hardy's Casterbridge will be unrecognisable. Our tourist industry will be irreparably damaged. Visitors come from around the world to discover Casterbridge and the surrounding countryside
We think there are better ways of doing things:
- Ways of building sustainably so that we don't add to the climate crisis and lost of biodiversity
- Building council houses for people on the housing list
- Encouraging community land trusts to develop small sites for local people
- Making the best of existing buildings and ensuring we don't have empty houses
If you’d like to know more about the proposal to build 3,500 houses here, have a look at our website. You can also sign the petition there, or get involved in the campaign visit www.stand-dorchester.net or download the trail click - EXPLORE DORCHESTER'S TIMELESS LAND
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Starts 11:00 until 18:00

Starts 15:00 until 18:30

Starts 17:30 until 19:30

Starts 18:00 until 19:00