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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2025/2026 THS Dates for your diary

From 05/04/2025 until 01/08/2026
Starts 11:00 until 18:00

Professor Roger Ebbatson Public Lecture

On 07/05/2025
Starts 15:00 until 18:30

Launch Event: 10 Lovers, 50 Poems

On 09/05/2025
Starts 17:30 until 19:30

Paula Byrne Lecture: Hardy Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses

On 30/05/2025
Starts 18:00 until 19:00