We’re just back from Dorset, where we stayed at Lower Bockhampton and travelled around much of Hardy’s Wessex searching out the sites believed to have been the inspiration behind many of the locations used by him in his popular novels and poems. Here is a selection of some of the fabulous and fascinating places we visited.

Under the Greenwood Tree

The replacement of the church choir by an organ is a prominent theme in the novel. Although the setting was the church at Stinsford, where Hardy’s father was a musician in the choir, the gallery was subsequently removed. TH took guests to see one of the few remaining galleries in Dorset, at nearby Puddletown

17th century graffiti on the musicians gallery

Keeper Day’s cottage, in Yalbury Wood – based on this remote cottage in Yellowham Wood

Pair of Blue Eyes

The Smith’s cottage in the Valency valley – where, in the book, the young architects parents reside

Widow Jethway’s cottage  – based on another cottage in the same remote Cornish valley

In real life, Hardy’s takes Emma down to the stream in the Vallency valley for a picnic and, in a famous event, she loses a glass in the water. Hardy captures the moment in a sketch and later a poem – Under the Water Fall

Paddle steamers feature in several of Hardy’s novels, in this particular one there is only a brief reference.  The Waverley, here pictured moored at Swanage, is the only working ocean-going vessel of her kind left in the world

Far from the Madding Crowd

This grand property was the model for Upper Farm, which Bathsheba inherits from her uncle (photo courtesy of RW)

This, now converted tithe barn at Cerne Abbas, is thought to be the inspiration for the wedding celebration barn in the novel

Lulworth Cove, the scene of Sergeant Troy’s thwarted attempt to drown himself

TH’s poem,  At Lulworth Cove a Centuary Back 

The Hand of Ethelberta

In the novel, Ethelberta rides to Corvesgate (Corfe Castle) on a donkey

Christopher Julian, one of Ethelberta’s suitors, plays the organ in Melchester cathedral – Salisbury, in real life

The Trumpet-Major

The lower mill at Sutton Poyntz is believed to be Hardy’s inspiration for Overcombe Mill, where the heroine lodges and from where she can observe the regimental goings-on in their camp, on the hill behind

Anne, the heroine, watches the Fleet departing for Spain from Pulpit Rock, close by this lighthouse on Portland Beal

Figure of King George III, carved in this Dorset chalk escarpment, to honour a visit by the royal

King George is also commemorated in this recently restored statue on Weymouth seafront

Major of Casterbridge

Some of the remaining booths at Weyhill Fair, where the drunken Michael Henchard sold his wife, Susan, to a passing sailor!

Henchard’s Casterbridge house after he’s made his fortune and became mayor of the town

Susan spies Michael Henchard at a meeting in a first floor room of the King’s Arms Hotel, years after their estrangement

Gray’s Bridge – frequently visited by Henchard in his more melancholy moods (photo courtesy RW)

Through an unfortunate chain of events Henchard is financially ruined, but is then given, by the townsmen of Casterbridge, a seed merchant’s shop to manage, overlooking the church yard

Tess of the d’Urbervilles

The model for Tess’s family home, before the death of her father and their subsequent eviction

Tess goes to work as a milk-maid on Talbothays Farm, before her marriage to Angel. The dormer window is said to be the bedroom where Tess prepared for her wedding

West Stafford church, used by Hardy as the location for Tess & Angel’s wedding

Wellbridge manor where Tess & Angel spend their honeymoon

The fatherless family camp in the churchyard, under the d’Urberville window at Bere Regis church, seeking recognition of their rightful inheritance

The Cross in Hand, hidden in a Dorset hedgerow – omen of mis-fortune for Tess

After Tess murders Alec, she and Angel run away. They take shelter at Stonehenge, where she is arrested and subsequently tried and hanged

Jude the Obscure

Jude finds employment as a stonemason, working on Melchester cathedral (Salisbury)

Jude is believed to have resided in accommodation close to Town Gate

Sue, Jude’s cousin, lives in Shaston (Shaftesbury)

The Well-beloved

Thought to be the model for Avice’s cottage, now the Portland Museum

Pierston rents Sylvania Castle in his pursuit of Avice

Photograph of Thomas Hardy, taken in his study at Max Gate, shortly before his death in 1928. From humble beginnings he became one of the most prodigious 19th century British authors, with more than ten popular novels and nearly a thousand poems to his name. He lived the majority of his life in Dorset and created a virtual landscape – Wessex, through which he captured, described and preserved many of the customs, traditions and hard-ships of a by-gone era.

For more photographs, covering the whole Thomas Hardy Trail week, visit http://www.robinwilliamsphotography.com/thomashardy

Portrait of Thomas Hardy, born 1840 – died 1928

We’ve come down to Dorset for a few days with my brother Robin – over from Australia, to do the Thomas Hardy Trail. Staying at the wonderfully atmospheric Old Post Office in Lower Bockhampton – which features explicitly in a couple of his poems, is opposite the old primary school which the young Hardy attended – just a short walk from his birthplace, close to Dorchester – Hardy’s Casterbridge and central for most of the important location throughout his life and, consequently, many of the places on which he based his novels and poems. We (well actually Jane and Robin!) have drawn heavily on the many available sources to create the itinerary, but we’ve found The Landscape of Thomas Hardy by Denys Kay-Robinson to be amongst the most useful. The majority of locations we’ve visited are to be found in the delightful county of Dorset but we have wandered more widely around ‘outer Wessex’ in our quest of discovery.
This blog is divided into two parts, the first covers most of the places significant in Hardy’s own life, the second, details the actual locations – about which there is a whole library of material and much debate, believed to have been used by Hardy as the backdrop to his novels and poems.

Lower Bockhampton, location of the Old Post Office

The Old Post Office, Lower Brockhampton

The porch of the old village school where Thomas Hardy was a pupil

The water meads across which TH would have walked on his way to and from school (courtesy of RW)

Thomas Hardy’s house in Upper Bockhampton, now in the care of the National Trust

The interior of the cottage, with Jemima his mother’s chair and his father’s violins

At the back of the cottage, Hardy’s Egdon Heath – location for much of the action in Return of the Native

Jemima’s parents cottage in Melbury Osmond

As a young architect, Hardy travelled to the remote church of St Juliot, Boscastle

Here, at the Rectory (now a B&B), he met Emma and fell in love. He married her more than a decade later

Hardy was responsible for supervising a major restoration of the church

The house in which Hardy lived briefly in Swanage, best observed from Sentry Road

Their first home together was on the banks of the Stour, at Sturminster Newton

The mill on the river which featured in his poetry

Max Gate in Dorchester, designed by TH and built by his father, where he lived for over forty years – first with Emma and later with Florence, his second wife. Now in the care of the National Trust (photo courtesy of RW)

The Hardy’s reconstructed sitting room – all of the original furniture & fittings having been sold off after his death

Details of Emma’s upstairs accommodation

The contents of Hardy’s study – removed from Max Gate, on his instruction, and relocated to the town museum after his death (photo courtesy of RW)

Thomas Hardy’s grave in Stinsford churchyard – his heart is buried here whilst his ashes rest in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey. He lies in the company of both Emma & Florence

Part 2 will feature the settings for most of his major works…

Ben Nevis – first climb of the amazing Three Peaks Challenge

This coming weekend we’re doing the Three Peaks challenge – climbing the three tallest mountains in Scotland, England & Wales, all in 24 hours! Well, when I say ‘we’ I mean three of our sons Matt, Josh and Jake, with their cousin Jack – in aid of a truly worthy charity, Marie Curie. My small part in this heroic venture is to act as driver, cook, first aider and general dog’s body! The itinerary goes roughly like this:

Friday night, drive to our Lancashire ‘base camp’. Saturday 10.00 am depart for Scotland, arriving at Fort William for around 4.30 pm. Ascent of the first peak, Ben Nevis, 4409ft, begins at five in the evening – they should be safely off the mountain by night-fall. Over-night drive to Wasdale Head, in the Lake District, ready for the climb of Scafell Pike, 3209ft, starting at 4.00am. Five hours later we should be on the road heading for Llanberis and the final ascent –  Snowdon, 3560ft,. If all goes to plan they should be up and back in four hours, inside the time limit of 24 hours!

Please do visit their giving site at http://www.sponsorme.co.uk/joshwilliams/3-brothers,-3-peaks,-24-hours!.aspx and support this noble cause.

Yesterday, on our return from Crowdy Head – after a few days away with Joe and Gabriella, we called in at Sugarloaf Point to see the lighthouse. Wow, turned out to be one of the most exquisite places I’ve seen in all Australia – just fabulous and couldn’t resist posting some pics.

Joe and Gabriella doing their Titanic thing!

If you want to go there you can stay at one of the old Keeper’s Cottages – but it’ll cost you $4,700 a week in high season!