THOMAS HARDY knew something about stone. We think of him as one of the giants of English literature, a poet and novelist who was lauded in his lifetime and memorialised alongside Charles Dickens in Westminster Abbey after his death in 1928. His vivid depictions of the lives of farmers and farmworkers such as Tess; of working men, including Jude, the studious stonemason; and his portrayal of provincial West Country town life and its characters, such as the Mayor of Casterbridge, is profound and perceptive. Throughout Hardy’s writing, there is also a notable sense of his interest in buildings, a reflection of his first intended career as an architect.
Above all, Hardy’s imagination was caught by the ancient stone-built manor houses of the Dorset of his youth, houses no longer occupied by old gentry families, but by tenant farmers, friends and neighbours of his parents. They provided models for the fictional Wessex that Hardy created, becoming his scenery, and setting the tone for many of his narratives. Fictional versions include the home of the independently minded Bathsheba Everdene in Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy’s first bestseller, in 1874, the sales of which allowed him to give up a career in architecture for writing. Another fine old house appears as the home of the miser Benjamin Derriman in The Trumpet-Major (1880) and, most memorably, there is Wellbridge Farm (Fig 4), setting for the ill-fated wedding night in Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891).
This story is from the November 27, 2024 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 27, 2024 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
