[Scanned from page 200 of "Murray’s Hand-Book, Wilts, Dorset, Somerset", John Murray, 1869 edition, London]
Eastbury Park. Dorsetshire, near Tarrent Hinton, Dorset
Eastbury Park (Young’s "Pierian Eastbury"), formerly the site of a mansion by Vanbrugh (see Campbell’s Vitruv. Brit. vol. iii.), of great size and splendour, erected 1718 at a cost of 140,000 L. by George Bubb Dodington. (Bubb Dodington, the son of an apothecary at Weymouth, and nephew of George Dodington, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, by address in electioneering gained political importance, and was created Lord Melcombe. He was a retainer of Frederick Prince of Wales.) The house was taken down and sold piecemeal, all but one wing, in 1795, by Earl Temple, who had previously offered an annuity of 2001. to any gentleman who would occupy it and keep it in repair. It is celebrated in verse by Thomson (who dedicated his ‘Summer’ to Dodington), Young, and Christopher Pitt, who writes
"Where with your Dodington retired you sit, Charmed with his flowing Burgundy and wit. Where a new Eden in the wilds is found, And all the seasons in a plot of ground." ---Pitt to Young.
They with Fielding, Bentley, and other literary men of the day, were frequent guests here. Voltare was also a visitor at Eastbury
"On Dorset Downs where Milton’s page, With Sin sad Death provoked thy rage." ---Young
The estate is now the property of’ J. J. Farquharson, Esq. Just outside Eastbury Park is Tarrent Gunville, with a ch. built 1503, with a pinnacled tower.