This gallery explores the lives and work of Dorset writers from Anglo-Saxon times to the twentieth century. Visitors to the Gallery will meet the Ooser - a strange beast (half-man, half-bull) who guards a room full of music and folk-drama. Here you can find out about the lost world of mummers, skimmity-riding and public executions.

You can also find out about a number of famous Dorset authors. William Barnes (1801-1886) is Dorset's greatest dialect poet. Barnes was a man of many talents; a poet, teacher, artist, priest, musician, linguist and antiquarian. His poetry is important because it preserves the local dialect, which has now fallen almost entirely out of use. A Touchcreen Interactive enables the visitor to hear some of his wonderful poems read or sung aloud.

Perhaps the most famous Dorset writer is the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). You can find out more about Thomas Hardy by clicking here.

Amongst the twentieth century literary figures to be found in the gallery's final room are three members of the remarkable Powys family. John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) was a prolific writer of poetry, philosophy, essays and novels. His novels, Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands and Maiden Castle are all set in the landscapes of his childhood, charting the complex interaction between time and place. His historical novel, The Brazen Head, is set in the Wessex of 1272.

Theodore Francis Powys (1875-1953) lived hermit-like for many years in the Dorset village of Chaldon Herring. His books use Chaldon and its inhabitants to explore his obsessions with good and evil, love, death and cruelty. They are spare, dark works, bitterly humorous and rich in allegory.

Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939) became a well-known country writer. Many of his essays were collected as Earth Memories, Dorset Essays and Somerset Essays.

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) moved to Chaldon after meeting Theodore Powys. She was a highly individual writer and contributed stories to the New Yorker for more than 40 years, translated Proust's Contre Sainte-Beuve into English, wrote a biography of the novelist TH White and a guide to Somerset. She also wrote a number of novels including Lolly Willowes and Summer will Show and several books of poetry.