Hardy's Cottage

Even now, Hardy's Cottage in Higher Bockhampton near Dorchester remains an isolated place in the Dorset countryside. In spite of a car stream of visitors to this property, now owned by the National Trust, it's necessary to edge very slowly through narrow lanes, topped by high hedgerows. I was late for my timed visit but the slow pace of travel was worth it. The simplicity of the cottage where Hardy was born, surrounded by the trees of Thorncombe Wood, gives a sense of what it was like for him and his siblings to have grown up here. The role of his mother in fuelling and encouraging the children's reading habits from an early age goes a long way in explaining how such a gifted family sprang from a such a rustic dwelling of the 1840s.