For a quiet rural county Dorset has some famous sons and daughters

The two most famous Dorset people would have to be Thomas Hardy and T.E.Lawrence Hardy is of course a literary giant having written such masterpieces as Jude the Obscure and the Mayor of Casterbridge.

He was born outside Dorchester and whilst he lived for a time in London never really liked the place so came back to Dorchester where he settled at Max Gate . Here he wrote the Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Robert Baden-Powell was the founder of the boy scout movement and held his very first camp on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour in 1907.He invited boys form all social classes to attend a camp where they would learn survival skills.Thus the scout movement was born.

There are others with less tenuous connections to the county such as Mary Shelly the author of Frankenstein, who is buried at St Peters Church right in the centre of Bournemouth of all places. Enid Blyton got her inspiration for her Famous Five books from the Isle of Purbeck (which is not an island).Corfe castle bears a remarkable likeness to Kirrin Castle in her stories.

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