The George Hotel at Dorchester on Thames is somewhere I’ve been meaning to get back to for a while. I’ve sketched the hotel before but from a different angle – as in my previous post ‘The George Hotel, Dorchester on Thames‘ However you can leave these things too long and on my return I found the hotel completely closed. It turned out that this is for major renovation rather than ‘closed – closed’. I hope they do a good job to bring this old coaching inn back to its former glory.

My visit was on a Sunday morning and i was surprised by how few people were around, although a bell-ringing practice at the Abbey sort of made up for that for a while. It is one of the things you notice when doing any sort of urban sketching – that people differ from place to place. In Dorchester everyone is very polite, they notice you – but otherwise pretend that you’re not there!

Here is a picture of the view…

… my sketch in-situ…

…and my finished drawing.

I later did a quick painting using this sketch. It is a bit rough and ready but here it is:

Dorchester seems like a nice place and somewhere with quite a lot of potential for further drawing, so I may well re-visit. The town has many fine old houses and as a fan of vernacular architecture and sketcher I appreciate that many of them are just a little crooked!

Hopefully the pub will also re-open soon !