Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born in a cottage in Higher Bockhampton on 2 June 1840 and it is where he spent most of his life apart from a short time in London and Weymouth in Dorset. His father was a master mason/builder who inherited the cottage from his father. Jemina, Hardy's mother, was a domestic servant but whose love of books and the countryside influenced young Thomas. He wrote most of his first four novels, including Under the Greenwood Tree and Far From the Madding Crowd, in a bedroom in the cottage. He loved the gentle Dorset hills and the views from them over the Blackmore and Marshwood Vales and Bulbarrow and Pilsdon Pen are mentioned in his poem Wessex Heights. 

Dorchester is prominent in many of his books and is thinly disguised as Casterbridge in the Mayor of Casterbridge and many of the town's buildings and landmarks can still be identified today. Bournemouth is Sandbourne, which is described in Tess of the D'Urbervilles as a 'fairy palace'. Picturesque Bere Regis, to the east of Dorchester, is Kingsbere also immortalised in Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  There is a well-established trail taking in towns and villages including Bridport, Sturminster Newton, Shaftesbury, Wimborne Minster, Beaminster, Salisbury, Sherborne, Stinsford, and Moreton, all of great inspiration to Hardy. 

North Dorset is dominated by the hedgerows and winding lanes of the Blackmore Vale plain, which more or less remains the same today as it did in Hardy's day. In the summer this area is a lush pastoral landscape with small roads, footpaths and bridleways. The scenic 630 miles South West Coast Path runs through the county and provides the walker with a variety of terrains and spectacular coastal views. The North Dorset Cycleway route runs through Thomas Hardy country and offers a choice of three routes, often taking you on quiet roads (73 miles, 45 miles and 26 miles) through the heart of Cranborne Chase and the Blackmore Vale, and just touching the Dorset Downs. 

Further information

The Thomas Hardy Society (www.hardysociety.org/)