The route
The route is named for the writer Thomas Hardy and runs through Thomas Hardy's Wessex, his version of Wessex, the region of the West Country of England portrayed in his books, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles , The Mayor of Casterbridge , Far From the Madding Crowd , Jude the Obscure and others.
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.
The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in The Mayor of Casterbridge. In an 1895 preface to the novel Far From the Madding Crowd he described Wessex as "a merely realistic dream country".
Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in the early 10th century.
It starts at Higher Bockhampton, where Hardy was born, and finishes at Stinsford churchyard, where Hardy's heart lies buried.
Stinsford is a village and civil parish in southwest Dorset, England, one mile east of Dorchester. The parish includes the settlements of Higher and Lower Bockhampton. The name Stinsford may derive from stynt, Old English for a limited area of pasture. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 334.
In Christian countries a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language this can also be known as a kirkyard.
It passes through Dorset and takes in along the route such villages and towns as Bere Regis, Lulworth Cove, Corfe Castle, Shaftesbury, Evershot and the county town, Dorchester.
Dorset is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of 2,653 square kilometres (1,024 sq mi), Dorset borders Devon to the west, Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north-east, and Hampshire to the east. The county town is Dorchester which is in the south. After the reorganisation of local government in 1974 the county's border was extended eastward to incorporate the Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch. Around half of the population lives in the South East Dorset conurbation, while the rest of the county is largely rural with a low population density.
Bere Regis is a village and civil parish in the Purbeck district of Dorset, England, situated 6 miles (9.7 km) north-west of Wareham. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 1,745.
Lulworth Cove is a cove near the village of West Lulworth, on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, southern England. The cove is one of the world's finest examples of such a landform, and is a World Heritage Site and tourist location with approximately 500,000 visitors every year, of whom about 30 percent visit in July and August. It is close to the rock arch of Durdle Door and other Jurassic Coast sites.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891, then in book form in three volumes in 1891, and as a single volume in 1892. Though now considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy's fictional masterpiece, Tess of the d'Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.
The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway in southern and eastern England that goes from Norfolk to Wiltshire. It follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills.
Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, 8 miles (13 km) west of Newbury, 9 miles (14 km) east of Marlborough, 27 miles (43 km) northeast of Salisbury and 60 miles west of London. The Kennet and Avon Canal passes through the town from the west alongside the River Dun, a major tributary of the River Kennet. The confluence with the Kennet is to the north of the centre whence canal and river both continue east. Amenities include schools, shops, cafés, restaurants, and facilities for the main national sports. The railway station is a minor stop on the London to Exeter Line.
The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in Dorset where the author spent his youth. It was first published as a weekly serialisation from January 1886.
Flagstones is a late Neolithic interrupted ditch enclosure on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset, England. It derives its name from having been discovered beneath the site of the demolished Flagstones House. Half of it was excavated in the 1980s when the Dorchester by-pass was built; the rest of it still exists under the grounds of Max Gate, Thomas Hardy's house.
The North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is located in the English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. The name North Wessex Downs is not a traditional one, the area covered being better known by various overlapping local names, including the Berkshire Downs, the North Hampshire Downs, the White Horse Hills, the Lambourn Downs, the Marlborough Downs, the Vale of Pewsey and Savernake Forest.
Max Gate is the former home of Thomas Hardy and is located on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset, England. It was designed and built by Thomas Hardy for his own use in 1885 and he lived there until his death in 1928. In 1940 it was bequeathed to the National Trust by Hardy's sister and is now open to the public. It was designated as a Grade I listed building on 8 May 1970.
St Cuthbert's Way is a 100-kilometre (62 mi) long-distance trail between the Scottish Borders town of Melrose and Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumberland, England. The walk is named after Cuthbert, a 7th-century saint, a native of the Borders who spent his life in the service of the church. The route links Melrose Abbey, where Cuthbert began his religious life, with his initial burial place on Holy Island. Cuthbert achieved the status of Bishop, and was called a saint eleven years after his death, when his coffin was opened and his remains found to be perfectly preserved.
The Test Way is a 49 miles (79 km) long-distance footpath in England from Walbury Hill in West Berkshire to Eling in Hampshire.
Egdon Heath is a fictitious area of Thomas Hardy's Wessex inhabited sparsely by the people who cut the furze (gorse) that grows there. The entire action of Hardy's novel The Return of the Native takes place on Egdon Heath, and it also features in The Mayor of Casterbridge and the short story The Withered Arm (1888). The area is rife with witchcraft and superstition.
The A338 is a major primary route in southern England, that runs from the junction with the A35 at Poole in Dorset to the junction with the A420 at Besselsleigh in Oxfordshire, a distance of 84 miles (135 km).
The Icknield Way Path or Icknield Way Trail is a long distance footpath in East Anglia, England. The ancient Icknield Way itself is unique among long-distance trails because it can claim to be ‘the oldest road in Britain’. It consists of prehistoric pathways, ancient when the Romans came; the route is dotted with archaeological remains. It survives today in splendid tracks and green lanes along the ‘chalk spine’ of southern England.
The Celtic Way is a long-distance walk from West Wales, through South Wales and into Wessex and the West of England in the United Kingdom. The route is 725-mile-long (1,167 km) and visits more than one hundred pre-historic sites through its route.
A long-distance trail is a longer recreational trail mainly through rural areas used for hiking, backpacking, cycling, horse riding or cross-country skiing. They exist on all continents except Antartica.
"Barbara of the House of Grebe" is the second of ten short stories in Thomas Hardy's frame narrative A Group of Noble Dames. It is told by the old surgeon. The story was published in The Graphic in 1890 and in book form in 1891.
The setting is particularly important in regional literature. In literature regionalism refers to fiction or poetry that focuses on specific features, such as dialect, customs, history, and landscape, of a particular region : "Such a locale is likely to be rural and/or provincial."
