Thomas Hardy Country, South Dorset & The Isle of Purbeck (3 Days)
Thomas Hardy was inspired and influenced by the landscape he imagined as "partly real, partly dream country".
Our 3-day tour explores some of the locations that can be identified in his novels, and places that featured strongly in his life including Higher Bockhampton, where Hardy wrote Under the Greenwood Tree and Far from the Madding Crowd. You will visit Stinsford churchyard, where his heart is buried and Dorchester, containing the world's finest collection of exhibits including a reconstruction of Hardy's study at Max Gate.
Cerne Abbas with it's famous giant, High Stoy, overlooking Hardy's White Hart Vale, home of The Woodlanders. Cross-in-hand, a stone pillar, featured in Tess of the d'Urbervilles which may "mark the site of a miracle or murder, or both", Eggerdon Hill, Hardy's Harggardon Hill. West Stafford Church where Tess and Angel were apparently married, Bere Regis with the tombs of the Turbervilles, Puddletown where Troy spent a night in Far from the Madding Crowd, and East Lulworth Church with a permanent exhibition of Hardy's life and work.
South Dorset & The Isle of Purbeck
You could spend a lifetime wandering this unique landscape of river valleys, heaths and dramatic coastlines and still be astonished by its beauty, history and heritage. To make things easier, we'll create your tour from some of the following gems:
Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum - In the pretty little village of Tolpuddle, six Martyrs were arrested in 1834 for trade union activity and sentenced to transportation, under the most horrific conditions, to Australia.
Bere Regis Church with a magnificent nave roof from 1485 described as the "finest in Dorset".
Clouds Hill, a tiny isolated brick and tile cottage used by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) as a retreat until his death nearby in a motorcycle accident.
Moreton Church home of the beautiful engraved glass windows created by Laurence Whistler, and the burial place of T.E. Lawrence.
Wool and the ruins of Bindon Abbey, which featured in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles as the place where the sleepwalking Angel Clare carried Tess and placed her in an empty stone coffin.
Corfe Castle standing in a gap in the Purbeck Ridge and one of the most evocative ruined castles in England. Walk amongst the dramatic and imposing ruins, standing sentinel over the Isle of Purbeck, and sense its 1,000 years of turbulent history.
Tyneham - The village taken from its parishioners, who never to returned.
St Aldhelm's Chapel - It is said that in 1140 a bride and groom were sailing around the headland watched by the bride's father. A storm suddenly arose, the boat capsized and both were drowned. The desolate father is said to have built the chapel to their memory, and a light was always to be kept burning to warn other sailors.
Walk to Dancing Ledge; lunch at The Square & Compass pub and onto Lulworth Cove, Durdle Dor and Man O'War Cove, experiencing some of the most beautiful and dramatic coastline in England.
