DORSET

THE spectacular backbone of all Dorset studies is the Reverend John Hutchins' The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, first published in two volumes in 1774, the year after his death. Subsequent editions of this indispensable work with new material were issued in four volumes in 1796–1815, edited by R. Gough and J. B. Nichols, and again in 1861–73, edited by W. Shipp and J. W. Hodson (reprinted in 1973). All subsequent and present writers are still in his debt. In contrast, only two Victoria County History volumes have been published (1908, 1968), with neither of them covering individual parishes, and the earlier increasingly out of date. C. Taylor's The Making of the English Landscape: Dorset (1970) is one of the more perspicacious volumes in this national series, but the study of medieval Dorset awaits an author. The bibliography of the county up to 1960 is covered by R. Douch, A Handbook of Local History: Dorset (1952) with a supplement to 1960 (1962).

The buildings of Dorset have been well served. They are very capably described by A. Oswald, Country Houses of Dorset (1st edn 1935, followed by a judiciously extended 2nd edn in 1959), and by J. Newman and N. Pevsner, Buildings of England: Dorset (1972), one of the more eloquent volumes in this series. For a detailed illustrated inventory, the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments covered the county in five volumes (5 in 8) between 1952 and 1975, though this lacks a comprehensive index.