Bicycle Riding in Dorchester

by Esmerelda Weatherwax (January 2013)

The summer before last Hugh, having discovered that author Thomas Hardy learnt to ride a bicycle in middle age (they had not been invented in his youth) pondered whether he rode a penny farthing or a later model. I found a picture of Hardy on a bicycle with wheels of equal size and we left it there.

This summer we happened to be in Dorset and my daughter and I visited some of the places of Hardy interest in and around Dorchester. We finished at Max Gate, which recently became the responsibility of the National Trust. Hardy had Max Gate built in 1885 and lived there until his death in 1928.

I don’t understand the technicalities of gears and safety chains but these men were responsible for what we recognise as the modern bicycle (as manufactured in England). James Starley invented a safety cycle he called the Rover as it seemed to be a good thing on which to rove around. But according to the Birmingham History Forum JK Starley invented a chain drive which he developed into the bicycle that achieved greater fame. His company went on to make motorbikes and Rover cars. The Rover with its Viking Rover bonnet badge was one of the mainstays of the British motor manufacturing industry, in the days we had such a thing.

The bicycle is therefore long gone but I was directed to the room at the back where it was stored. In the second photograph Emma Hardy and her nephew are in the foreground. Below that is the view across the garden as it is now, with the addition of a glass conservatory.

Photographs E Weatherwax and S Sto Helit July 2012

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