by Thomas Hardy
It is the opinion of some of those who have written on the Wessex novels that the thin veil which the author has cast over the localities which he describes should not be lifted, and that readers do better to remain in ignorance of the actual scenes, contenting themselves with the descriptions to be found within the pages of the books.
Such is not the experience of the present writer, nor is it that of other lovers of the novels in whose company he has explored the district with which they deal, for he and they have learnt how much a knowledge of the country helps the reader to appreciate and realize the stories. Those who desire to follow in this path will, it is hoped and believed, find in these pages a guide, which will enable them to trace the scenes described in the novels, and visit the houses in which his characters have played their parts in the comedy or tragedy of life.
Mr. Hardy has himself given some account of the method on which his topographical scheme was worked out—an account which may be quoted here before any comment is made upon it. In the introduction to the last edition of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” he tells us, “In response to inquiries from readers interested in landscape, prehistoric antiquities, and especially Old English architecture, it may be said that the description of these backgrounds in this and its companion novels has been drawn from the real. Many features of the first two kinds have been given under their existing names; for instance, the Vale of Blackmore or Blakemore, Hambledown Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettlecomb Tout, Dogbury Hill, High Stoy, Bubb-Down Hill, The Devil’s Kitchen, Cross-in-Hand, Long-Ash Lane, Benvill Lane, Giant’s Hill, Crimmercrock Lane, and Stonehenge. The rivers Froom or Frome and Stour are, of course, well known as such. And in planning the stories, the idea was that large towns and points tending to mark the outline of Wessex, such as Bath, Plymouth, The Start, Portland Bill, Southampton, etc., should be named outright. The scheme was not greatly elaborated, but, whatever its value, the names remain still. In respect of places described under fictitious or ancient names—for reasons that seemed good at the time of writing—discerning persons have affirmed in print that they clearly recognize the originals;” and then follows a list, which need not be reproduced here, terminating with the observation, “I shall not be the one to contradict them: I accept their statements as at least an indication of their real and kindly interest in the scenes.”
In visiting the localities associated with the novels, it must ever be borne in mind that Mr. Hardy is a story-writer and not a guide-book maker, an artist and not a photographer. Il prend son bien ou il le trouve; and if he fails to find, in the village in which the scene of his story is laid, some adequate house for its centrepiece, he does not scruple to import one which falls in with his idea and the needs of the story from a greater or less distance. Thus the house from which the description of Bathsheba’s farm is taken is not to be found in Puddletown, the Weatherbury of “ Far from the Madding Crowd,” but at a spot some two miles distant from that place; and Great Hintock House, Mrs. Charmond’s residence, is not in the country of “The Woodlanders,” but in quite another part of the county. Again, some places are of the nature of composite pictures, such as the Tower in “Two on a Tower,” which has features borrowed, as Mr. Hardy himself has pointed out in the introduction to the last edition of that novel, from two of the several obelisks and towers which are to be found in the county of Dorset. But in every case—or in almost every case—the houses described are real edifices, whether they occupy the sites allotted to them in the novels or not, and are drawn for us, as a general rule, with that architectural accuracy which Mr. Hardy’s early studies in that profession have enabled him to impart to them. With regard to natural scenery the case is different. Here the descriptions paint for us the scenes as they are, and as we should wish to describe them, when we see them, were we endowed with the pen of a master. Instances of this may be found in the pictures of the Vale of Blackmore, the valley of the Frome as seen by Tess on her way to Talbothays, and the various accounts of Egdon Heath.
In certain cases Mr. Hardy has given an easy clue to the place which he had in his mind when writing, by transferring the name of the locality to his hero or some other character in the book. Thus Fawley, Jude’s surname, is the real name of the village which figures in the book as Marygreen; Melbury, the timber-merchant of “The Woodlanders,” takes his name from the real appellation of one of the Hintocks; and Phillotson’s friend and fellow-schoolmaster, Gillingham, is called after the place in which he taught, the Leddenton of the tale.
True to his devotion to Wessex, the names of many, perhaps of most, of Mr. Hardy’s characters—to diverge for a moment into a bypath—are taken from the names of villages in the district, or will be found on tombstones, over shop-doors, or in pedigrees belonging to the same region. Thus the Chickerells are villages near Weymouth; the name of Tullidge, that hero who “fout at Valencien,” and showed his ruined arm to Maidy Anne in “The Trumpet-Major,” is on a tombstone at Abbotsbury; Derriman presides over a shop at Cerne Abbas; and Keyte finds a place in the pedigree of those descended from the old Jerseyman, Thomas Hardy, of whose stock are the novelist and that other celebrated Thomas Hardy, who sailed the ship which carried Nelson to death and glory at Trafalgar.
The visitor to Dorsetshire, who knows his Wessex novels, will constantly be struck with the small touches betraying the intimate knowledge which its novelist possesses of his country. Many of these will be alluded to in subsequent pages, and one only need here be mentioned as an example. It will be remembered that Tess, on her journey to Marlott, after her betrayal by Stoke-D’Urberville, met with a man whose simple method of evangelization was to paint texts, mostly of a denunciatory character, on the top bars of gates and stiles and other such places. Many such inscriptions may be found in the country around Dorchester, though the present writer, with a fair knowledge of rural England, has never come across them elsewhere. Thus, on a stile near Stinsford, as Mr. New shows in his picture, is inscribed, “Speak Evil of No Man;” and on a gate near Maiden Newton—one of several inscriptions in that part of the world—is, “Prepare to Meet Thy God.”
Lulworth Cove
Illustration from Hardy Country Water-Colours by Walter Tyndale.
Budmouth to Lulstead
Selection from The Wessex of Thomas Hardy by
B.C.A. Windle & E.H. New.
In this excursion the road leads east instead of west, and crossing that gentle slope which is called Greenhill, takes us past the malodorous marsh called Lodmore and under Jordan Hill, once the site of a Roman watering-place, where many relics of imperial times have been turned up by the plough and spade. A couple of miles further, the road crosses a stream, and looking to our left there is to be seen a little one-arched bridge of exceedingly rude construction. This may date back to Roman times, though some authorities have been inclined to assign it to the Norman period. It may possibly have been the bridge without a parapet under which Anne Garland and Matilda Johnson hid Bob Loveday from the press-gang, for the houses near which it stands form part of the village of Sutton Poyntz, the Overcombe of “The Trumpet-Major.” The village may be approached by the footpath near this bridge, or by taking the next turn on the left beyond it. Whichever way is chosen, the visitor will eventually reach a flour-mill driven by the waters of the little stream running through the valley in which the village nestles. The Hardyite, who is really familiar with the novels, will at first experience a sense of disappointment, for in no way can what he sees be made to fit in with the details given in the story. His mind will, however, be relieved when he learns that the mill of the story has been pulled down, that which now occupies its site being a modern erection. Modern, too, is the tall chimney of the waterworks, which ensure to Weymouth a constant and excellent supply of that fluid, to the serious detriment of the scene, and the great attenuation of the stream which drives the mill. If one passes the mill and halts upon the tiny bridge which spans the stream a little higher up the road, and then endeavours to eliminate from the prospect the afor
esaid chimney and a new and obtrusive inn, too often noisy with hordes of trippers from the neighbouring watering-place, a good idea can be obtained of what the village and the mill-pond looked like on the day when John Loveday and the troopers descended from the hill to water their horses in the pool.
This is the prospect which Anne surveyed from her chamber window. “Immediately before her was the large, smooth mill-pond, over-full, and intruding into the hedge and into the road. The water, with its flowing leaves and spots of froth, was stealing away, like Time, under the dark arch, to tumble over the great slimy wheel within. On the other side of the mill-pond was an open place called the Cross, because it was three-quarters of one, two lanes and a cattle-drive meeting there. It was the general rendezvous and arena of the surrounding village. Behind this a steep slope rose high into the sky, merging in a wide and open down, now littered with sheep newly shorn. The upland by its height completely sheltered the mill and village from north winds, making summers of springs, reducing winters to autumn temperatures, and permitting myrtles to flourish in the open air.” John Loveday pointed out to Anne one day that the soldiers were “cutting out a huge picture of the king on horseback in the earth of the hill. The king’s head is to be as big as our mill-pond, and his body as big as this garden; he and the horse will cover more than an acre.” Those who wish to climb up and closely examine this work of art had better do so from here. Those who are content with a distant view of it can obtain it from the long hill which has to be climbed after the main road has been regained. This hill climbed and the descent of its opposite side accomplished, the village of Osmington, where there is nothing to detain us, is reached.
The next village is Poxwell, whose name is a corruption of Puck’s well. It is the Oxwell of “The Trumpet-Major,” and contains the fine Jacobean manor-house of the Hennings at which old Derriman lived—though, for the purposes of his story, Mr. Hardy has placed it considerably nearer to Overcombe than it really is. Like Waterston, it was once the residence of one of the smaller families of the country, and, like it, has descended in the social scale to the status of a farmhouse. It closely corresponds with the description given in the story, though it is in a better state of repair than in the days of the penurious Derriman. The eye will at once be caught by the arched gateway which screens the main front, and the porter’s lodge above it, reached by a spiral staircase. The visitor should, after having examined the front of this fine old house, walk round to the east side, with its row of gable-ends, and investigate, if he is allowed, the yard at the back, after which he will come to the conclusion that few modern houses can compete in beauty with this ancient residence.
A mile or so beyond Poxwell the road meets that from Dorchester at Warmwell Cross, and here we are on ground which we have already traversed. We pass the road which turns down to Owermoigne, and take the turn by the Red Lion leading to Lulworth, through Winfrith Newburgh. Beyond West Lulworth is Lulworth Cove, the goal of our journey. This is the “small basin of sea enclosed by the cliffs” in which Troy bathed after his night in Puddletown church porch, and at its mouth can be seen “the two projecting spurs of rock which formed the pillars of Hercules to this miniature Mediterranean.” It is the Lulstead of the novels, where the dead bodies of Stephen Hardcome and his cousin’s wife were washed up, and where Cytherea Graye met Edward Springrove for the first time. It is also one of the places where Mrs. Lizzie Newberry’s associates were in the habit of running their cargoes of smuggled spirit, and seems, indeed, by nature to have been intended for clandestine operations of one sort or another. During the time when the Catholic religion was proscribed in this country, and those who professed it were subjected to the rigours of a harsh penal code, the introduction of priests into England was one of the things most strictly forbidden. Yet many a seminary priest did find his way into the country, and a large number of these were landed, under cover of night, in this secluded basin, and hurried off to the neighbouring Catholic house of Lulworth Castle, the seat of the Weld family. Finally, this is “the three-quarter round Cove, screened from every mortal eye,” where old Solomon Selby, when a young man, saw Bonaparte exploring the land in search of a suitable place for the landing of his fleet of flat-bottomed boats, as narrated in the “Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four.” It is difficult, until one examines the broadsheets and other ephemeral literature of the day, to realize how great was the terror of a French descent upon these shores. Some idea we gain of it from the scenes in “The Trumpet-Major;” but, then, Mr. Hardy has had the advantage of hearing accounts of that time from the lips of actual eye-witnesses, who are now laid to rest. In the novel just mentioned there is a transcription of a Proclamation to the people of England, telling them how they should prepare for the expected invasion. An original copy of this Proclamation may be seen in the Museum at Salisbury, and by it hangs another document of the same kind, which is less well known. It throws so much light upon the state of feeling at the period, that it will not be loss of space to quote it here in extenso.
“Fellow-Citizens,—Bonaparte threatens to invade us. He promises to enrich his soldiers with our property: To glut their lust with our Wives and Daughters: To incite his Hell-hounds to execute his vengeance he has sworn to permit everything. Shall we merit, by our cowardice, the titles of Sordid Shopkeepers, Cowardly Scum and Dastardly Wretches, which in every proclamation he gives us: No; we will loudly give him the lie: let us make ourselves ready to shut our Shops and march to give him the reception his malicious calumnies deserve: let every brave young fellow instantly join the Army or Navy; and those among us, who, from being married or so occupied in business, cannot, let us join some Volunteer Corps, where we may learn the use of arms and yet attend our business; let us encourage recruiting in our neighbourhood, and loudly silence the tongues of those whose Ignorance or Defection (if any such there be) lead them to doubt of the attempt to invade, or inveigh against the measures taken to resist it. By doing this, and feeling confidence in ourselves, we shall probably prevent the attempt, or, if favoured by a dark night, the enemy should reach our shores, our Unanimity and Strength will paralize his efforts and render him an easy prey to our brave Army. Let us in our families and neighbourhood, thus contribute to so desirable an event, and the blood-stained banners of the vaunted Conquerors of Europe will soon be hung up in our Churches, the humble trophies of our brave Army: an Army ever victorious when not doubled in numbers; and the only Army who can stand the charge of Bayonets.What Army ever stood THEIRS !!!—let the welfare of our country animate all—and ‘come the world in arms against us, we’ll shock ‘em.’
A Shopkeeper.
Thee Haughty Tyrants ne’er shall tame,
All their attempts to pull thee down
Shall but arouse thy gen’rous flame
To light their woe and thy renown.—R.B.
Rule Brittannia.
Printed for J. Ginger,169, Piccadilly.
Price Sixpence per Dozen for Distribution.
W. Marchant, Printer, 3, Greville St., Holborn.”
One more instance of the careful study of the literature of the time which Mr. Hardy has made, and of the vivid picture which he has thus been enabled to throw upon the canvas of his tale, may be found in the data on which are based Corporal Tullidge’s instructions for firing his beacon.
“‘Did you get your signal to fire it from the east?’ said the miller hastily.
“‘No; from Abbotsea Beach.’
“‘But you are not to go by a coast signal!’
“‘Chok’ it all, wasn’t the Lord-Lieutenant’s direction, whenever you see Rainbarrow’s Beacon burn to the nor’-east’ard, or Haggardon to the nor’-west’ard, or the actual presence of the enemy on the shore?’”
Now, in Bankes’ “Story of Corfe Castle,” will be found a copy of a letter sent by the Earl of Dorchester, the Lord-Lieutenant of the County of Dorset, to Henry Bankes, Esq., then member of Parliament for Corfe Castle, which, with a substitution of names, contains very m
uch the same directions which Tullidge recited.
Private.
Milton Abbey, Blandford,
October 12, 1803.
“My Dear Bankes,— The spring-tides take place next Saturday, and the information to Government is so precise that the Isle of Wight is the enemy’s object, that it is not improbable they may avail themselves of this ensuing spring-tide; if they do not, their attempt must be postponed another month. Under these circumstances I would not fail of giving you this notice in confidence, that you will keep it to yourself, and only so far prepare Mrs. Bankes and your family as to be able to remove them upon the first intelligence of the enemy’s being off the coast. I have to beg of you that you will give directions for an assemblage of fagots, furze, and other fuel, also of straw to be stacked and piled on the summit of Badbury Rings, so as the whole may take fire instantly, and the fire be maintained for two hours. The general direction, if you will take the trouble of ordering the execution, is that this beacon may be fired whenever the beacon off St. Catherine’s (Christ Church) is fired to the eastward, or whenever the beacons on Lytchet Heath or Woodbury Hill are fired to the westward, but not from the demonstration of any coast signal.
I am, my dear Bankes,
Yours most sincerely,
Dorchester.”
One word more to the visitor to Lulworth. It is a good plan to time one’s visit to that spot so as to catch the steamer from Weymouth, which visits that place on certain days during the summer, on its return trip. Thus the fatigue of the journey will be avoided, and an opportunity will be afforded for seeing the coast scenery between the two places. The rocks near Lulworth, Durdle Door, that strange natural archway, and Ringstead Cove, where the smuggling parishioners of the Distracted Preacher ran their tubs, will all be seen on this short voyage.