THINK you know Dorset well? Dorset-based writer and lecturer David Hilliam may turn your understanding of the county upside-down with his new book, The Little Book of Dorset.

Hilliam has lived in Bournemouth since 1964 and has written around 20 books, but this is probably his quirkiest and most thought-provoking.

It’s a compendium of interesting snippets about the county, penned from the man who used to have a weekly column in this paper, called This Week’s Word.

He said: “I thoroughly enjoyed researching this book. I was particularly intrigued to learn more about the fossil hunter Mary Anning and the huge beast that is still in the cliffs at Lyme Regis.

“I’m also determined to get to the nettle eating championships in Marshwood.”

Such is Hilliam’s tenacity (he collected 30,000 signatures in an attempt to save the Bournemouth Winter Gardens), he left practically no stone unturned in his quest for interesting facts.

Here a few to whet your appetite…

• Thomas Hardy had personal space issues and hated to be touched. He would walk down the middle of Dorchester High Street to avoid people brushing against him.

• Two gay male swans – both hatched in 2002 – have nested together for several years. They regularly form a nest together and sit on it, obviously expecting to lay eggs. They have no interest in female swans and are long-term partners. They are the only gay swans among the 1,000 other heterosexual swans at Abbotsbury.

• And on the subject, an Abbotsbury swan was used by Jacob Epstein as a model for St Michael’s wing on his statue on Coventry Cathedral.

• The St Peter’s Finger in Lytchett Minster is the only pub in the whole of the UK with this strange name. But the ‘finger’ is really a corruption of the Latin ad vincula, meaning ‘in chains’. St Peter was often shown in medieval paintings as a prisoner.

• Portland stone has been called ‘arguably the finest building stone in England. Sir Christopher Wren was so delighted with the excellent quality of Portland stone that he used more than a million cubic feet of it for building St Paul’s Cathedral and other city churches after the Great Fire of London.

A few other examples of where the ‘king of the oolites’ can be seen are: The Tower of London, The Cenotaph, The British Museum, The Bank of England, The National Gallery, New BBC Broadcasting House and the UN building in New York.

• You may know that rabbits must never be mentioned on the Isle of Portland, because locals believe their burrowing causes landslides. But did you know that, when the 2005 Wallace and Gromit film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit came out, special posters had to be made. They omitted the word rabbit and the film’s title was changed to Something Bunny is Going On.

• Where would you imagine to find Hitler’s desk? Berlin? Someone’s cellar in Bavaria? No it’s at the Dorset Regiment Museum in Dorchester.

• And going back to Thomas Hardy. When the author died in 1928, his reputation as a writer was so great that nothing short of a burial at Westminster Abbey was deemed appropriate. Unfortunately, Hardy himself wanted to be buried at Stinsford, beside the Dorset church where he had worshipped since childhood. A somewhat gruesome compromise was agreed – his body would go to the abbey but his heart would be buried in Stinsford.

Going about his odd business, the local doctor went to Max Gate to cut out Hardy’s heart, and then left it on the kitchen table wrapped up in a cloth. Shortly afterwards, when the undertaker arrived to take possession of the 87-year-old heart, he was appalled to find that it had disappeared and a cat was nearby, obviously having just enjoyed an unusual meal.

According to credible sources, the undertaker acted swiftly and with commendable presence of mind. He killed the cat and took it away with – presumably – Hardy’s heart inside it. An amateur photograph of Hardy’s funeral at Stinsford shows the clergyman bearing Hardy’s heart in a wooden casket, rather larger than would be necessary to hold a heart, but of a convenient size to hold a cat.

• The Little Book of Dorset by David Hilliam is published by The History Press priced £9.99 (hardback)

• David Hilliam’s next book focuses on young men from Bournemouth School who wrote to their families from the battlefields of the First World War. If you can help with any information, letters or memorabilia, please contact davidhilliam@ntlworld.com