Cottages Dorchester by Mortimer Menpes, R.I.. Watercolor. Source: The Thames, Facing 48. Text and formatting by George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the University of Toronto and the Internet Archive and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]
Dorchester, with its cornfields and trees, its vegetable gardens, and its old houses bowed this way and that, is a very unsophisticated little place. The deep quiet of its village street, where the cottages glow all hues in the sunlight, from deep red ochre to egg-colour, brooded over by the long-backed abbey church, is a rest-cure in itself. The great yew trees, the pretty lych-gate, the old wooden porch, are all just what one would expect to find. Dorchester is not on the Thames, yet belongs to it certainly, for the Thame, which combines with the Isis to form the Thames, flows past it. As its name proclaims, Dorchester was once a Roman camp. Numerous Roman coins have been found in the neighbourhood, and a Roman altar. It was also the seat of one of the first and largest bishoprics in England. [49-50]
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References
Menpes, Mortimer, R.I., and G[eraldine]. E[dith]. Mitton. The Thames. London: A. & C. Black, 1906. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 18 April 2012.