Dorchester

Dorchester is a market town on the River Frome, in the chalk country of Dorset. Built on the site of the Roman town of Durnovaria, it remained a centre of markets and county justice. A great fire devastated much of the town in 1613. In 1685, after the defeat of the Monmouth rebellion, Judge George Jeffreys held the Bloody Assizes here, trying many of those accused of supporting the rising.