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Thomas Hardy's Cottage, Dorset

This cottage in Higher Bockhampton near Dorchester in Dorset was Thomas Hardy's home from his birth in 1840 until his move to London in 1860. He then returned to the cottage to write Under The Greenwood Tree, in 1872 and Far From The Madding Crowd in 1874. Most of Hardy's writing was done in a small upstairs room with a window seat. The window gave a view over Blackdown. In those days it would have been possible to see the distant Hardy Monument high on Blackdown. This commemorated Thomas Hardy's distant relative Thomas Masterman Hardy who was captain of HMS Victory at Trafalgar.

It is only in visiting the cottage that you get an appreciation of the quiet solitude of Hardy's early life. There were periods of activity and busyness, with men engaged in his father's building trade coming and going. It is still possible to see a barred window through which men employed in the family firm were paid. But in the evenings there must have been very little to break the stillness. In one of the rooms I read a copy of a poem that Hardy wrote one winter's day after a deer had wandered up to one of the cottage windows and looked in:

 

 

From the sheet of glistening white

One without looks in tonight

As we sit and think

By the fender brink

 

This is a cottage so quiet that even a creature as shy and retiring as a deer comes up to have a look. There must have been plenty of time to sit and think beside the fire.

Hardy's Cottage is now owned by the National Trust.

Hardy's Cottage is the starting point for the Hardy Way, a two hundred mile walk through many of the places that were important to the Wessex novels.

 

 

Address: Hardy's Cottage, Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester, Dorset DT2 8QJ

Opening Times: Opening hours for National Trust properties can be complex. Please use contact details below.

Directions: Higher Bockhamton is just off the A35 near Dorchester. Leave the road at the Stinsford roundabout and follow signs to Higher Bockhampton. The car park is a five to ten minute walk from the property. There are two routes, one along a track, and a nicer route through the woods. Click here for an interactive road and satellite map centred on Hardy's Cottage.

Access: The track from the car park to the cottage is flat, though rough underfoot. The path through the woods is hilly in parts. The cottage itself would be difficult for those in wheelchairs, though the grounds are accessible. There is a Braille and large print guide.

Contact:

telephone: 01305 262366

e-mail: hardycountry@nationaltrust.org.uk

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