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Early Settlement
There is evidence of human settlement in Dorchester
from Neolithic times. To the south, Iron Age people
occupied a hill fort on Castle Hill; later the Celtic people
enclosed their settlement by building the Dyke Hills, a
rare example of a pre-Roman town, about half a mile
from the present village.
Roman to Saxon
Dorchester today lies over the old Romano-British walled
town, of which the southern and western boundaries can
still be traced. This town became the centre of a Saxon
settlement. The present day allotments were once the
Hempcroft.
Cynegils the king of the West Saxons was baptised in the
River Thame by St Birinus in 635 and Dorchester became
the episcopal centre for Wessex. Later it came under the
control of Offa, King of Mercia, which led to the See of
Dorchester stretching from the Thames to the Humber,
but in 1075 Remegius removed the See to Lincoln.
Medieval to Tudor
In 1140 Dorchester’s Augustinian monastery was founded
and the Abbey was built on the old Saxon foundations.
At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII
in the 1530s, the church building was saved for posterity through
its purchase for £140 by local wealthy man Richard
Beauforest who left it to the village in his will.
Modern
As Wallingford and Oxford grew, Dorchester’s
importance as a centre decreased. However, its
location on the main roads from Gloucester and
from Oxford to London ensured its role as a focal
point for travellers, with several inns as well as two
stagecoach inns. The road was one of the earliest
to become a toll road. The building of the bypass
(the present A4074) in the 20th century brought further
changes. The population in 2000 was 1023.
Revised 12/01/2005 © 2005 DOTWeb