Sidney Heath

“ The walk towards the last-named is one of the wildest solitude, the only living creatures being the white sea-birds, and the only sounds the murmur of the waves as they surge round the bleak pinnacles of rock. Here and there, where the track-way turns at an angle, we catch a glimpse of vast cavernous recesses, some natural and some the work of men's hands, where ponderous masses have been riven away from the face of the cliff, and tumbled headlong into the water, where they lie amid the swirling eddies of the tide. ”

“ The still meadows that lie around this landlocked haven are green with the growth of centuries; and over the golden corn waving freely on the upland slopes, or above the lavender fields of Broadstone, the lark in summer air is singing. Quietly, with clear spaces of light above them, in silver lapses under the darkening trees, the little rivers thread the fertile valleys, and the Frome runs eastwards from Dorchester, linking, as with a liquid thread, the far-famed county town with the equally ancient maritime port of Wareham. ”

“ For miles one can wander amid such scenes in this fair Wessex land, where the roses of dawn fade into the infinite azure of a cloudless sky, and the cool salt breath of the sea-borne air is an elixir of life. Moreover, these soft sea breezes, that temper the dazzling heat of the summer sun, waft in their train an unfading wreath of memories of that antique civilization which existed long before the prows of the Roman galleys clove the ethereal mists that fringe the Dorsetian seas. ”

“ The visitor to the Hardy country will quickly realize that, in spite of railways, motor cars, and cycles, more than half of South Dorset is a closed book to those who do not walk; while the beautiful coast scenery of this historic land is for the pedestrian alone. The iron road conveys the conventional tourist from an inland to a maritime town, motor cars and cycles thread the great highways, now stripped of their high and shade-giving hedges for the convenience of their mechanically propelled travellers. ”

“ Space fails one to trace the boundaries of the re-created Wessex any further. Very rightly, very thoroughly has the novelist par excellence of our day, appreciated all the nobleness and all the poetry that lies within the area of his chosen mise en scène. Not the least of the services which Mr. Thomas Hardy has rendered us, perhaps even to be prized more than his faithful portraying of rustic character, is his thus revivifying, and by consequence exciting the popular taste for and delight in so interesting a portion of our English homeland. ”

“ The magnificent panorama from the high land above Studland embraces nearly the whole of the eastern half of Dorset, the far-famed Isle of Purbeck, and as we turn from the amphitheatre of rolling downs the eye ranges to the blue sea breaking at the base of the chalk cliffs of the Isle of Wight, or foaming round the near promontory of Peveril Point. ”

“ To watch one of these caravans from the heart of Dorset disgorge its contents reminds one of nothing so much as the conjuror's hat at our first "grown-up" Christmas party. How so many human beings can be squeezed into the few cubic feet left over from the merchandise is a mystery, the knowledge of which would make the fortune of an enterprising omnibus company. When meeting one of these Noah's Arks in the country one would think at first sight that it contained men only, although the incessant chattering that proceeds from the cavernous depths of the vehicle has a distinctly feminine note. ”

“ Although there is scarcely any portion of the county that does not figure in one or other of Mr. Hardy's novels or poems, yet by far the greater number of scenes lie in the portion called South Dorset, around and below an imaginary line drawn from a little to the west of Dorchester to Poole Harbour, and it is mainly with this portion of the Hardy country that it is proposed to deal in this volume.
Like all the true beauty spots of England, increasing familiarity with these south-country landscapes deepens their ineffaceable impression as it multiplies their alluring charms ”

“ It is only when one begins to understand the planning of the streets, and has visited the town's outlying earthworks of Maumbury and Poundbury, that the mind can realize the possibility of a Roman town being buried a few feet beneath the houses that line the narrow thoroughfares. It has been said that one cannot plant a shrub in a Dorchester garden without unearthing some link with the legions of imperial Rome, an excusable exaggeration if we think of the vast number of treasures that have been discovered wherever the layer of surface soil has been penetrated ”

“ At the head of the stairway are the two panels on which are depicted the portraits of those ancestors, the sight of which caused Tess to shudder. The house itself is an interesting specimen of ancient domestic architecture, from which in the gloom of the evening the phantom coach and four drives out of the gateway; but this ghostly equipage is visible only to a member or near relative of the Turberville family. The house and bridge never look better or more romantic than when their masses of grey masonry loom out against the evening sky. ”

“ Although Dorset has a host of literary associations other than those furnished by the Wessex novels, and notwithstanding that William Barnes sang of its charms to deaf ears as sweetly as ever Burns piped of the North Country, it was left to Thomas Hardy to reveal Dorset to those who knew it not; although he was writing for a great many years before his novels began to draw people to the land of Gabriel Oak, Tess, and Ethelberta. ”

“ A fine walk over Ballard Down not only commands some exceptional and sweeping views of the Dorset and Hampshire coast, but leads to Studland, a charming village with an ancient Norman church and a glorious little bay of golden sand, that is edged by the wide expanse of unenclosed moorland known as Studland Heath. ”

“ The return journey affords the travellers no relief, for the "imports" of the morning journey have merely been exchanged for "exports", and so the tired but happy parties return to their secluded village homes, carrying with them a pungent odour in which beer, oranges, and pepper mints are curiously mingled. All readers of Mr. Hardy's novels will remember Tranter Dewy in Under the Greenwood Tree.
At the Swan Bridge, which crosses the Frome just below the White Hart, we can leave the busy thoroughfare and proceed along a pleasant and shady walk that lines the bank of the stream. ”

“ Interesting as is the rock of Portland as seen from the Bill or from the sandy little cove of Church Ope, the seaward faces of the promontory are best observed from the deck of a boat, when all the elements that go usually to form a picture on a level surface are here raised nearly to the perpendicular, and, by reflecting the sun's rays at a slight angle, produce effects as violent in their nature as they are startling in their novelty of colour. ”

“ Westward, too, over an expanse of southern sea, the sun sinks behind the belt of blue, and flushes the golden glow of sky with varying hues of rose and amethyst, until the overarching heaven seems etherealized into a transparent canopy that veils the mystic radiance of some hidden glory. ”

“ On every side great masses of broken masonry lie in heaps on the grass, or are seen suspended as if by magic in mid-air, a testimony to the destructive power of gun-powder and to the excellence of the mortar used by the Norman builders. ”

“ At the same time learned historians tell us that it is by no means certain that any of the Roman legions left this country by way of the Dorset coast.
The greatest architectural attraction of the neighbourhood is Lulworth Castle, standing in a finely wooded park of 640 acres. The building is in the form of a cube, and is of early Jacobean date, having been built almost entirely with material from the Abbey of Bindon, near Wool, when such was demolished at the Reformation. The façade of the edifice is ornamented with heraldic shields and allegorical figures representing Music and Painting. ”

“ Hardy has occasionally gone far beyond the narrow boundaries of his home county, yet for general purposes his Wessex is synonymous with the county of Dorset. Historically considered the Wessex of the novels is but partially conterminous with that wherein, after centuries of bloodshed, our Saxon ancestors established their Octarchy, and the novelist has explained his reasons for the adoption of the name "Wessex", which did not appear in any of the novels until the publication, in 1874, of Far from the Madding Crowd. ”

“ Facing us are the Town Hall and St. Peter's Church, the latter of which is conjectured by some authorities to stand on the site of a Roman temple. It is a stately Perpendicular building with an imposing tower and a remarkable set of gargoyles. The Transition-Norman door-arch of the south porch is a survival of an older church that once occupied the same spot. Outside the church is Roscoe Mullins's lifeless-looking bronze statue of William Barnes, the Dorset poet, who, until his death in 1886, was the near neighbour and literary friend of Thomas Hardy. ”

“ No visitor should leave the town without paying a brief visit to the great earthworks of Maumbury Rings and Poundbury Camp, the former of which is undergoing a series of scientific excavations by Mr. St. George Gray, engaged for the purpose by a joint committee of the Dorset Field Club and the British Archæological Association. Thomas Hardy, whose Dorchester home is but a short distance away, describes Maumbury as "a huge circular enclosure, with a notch at opposite extremities of its diameter, north and south. ”

“ The loading of a "tranter's" cart with men, women, and children, not to mention the immense packages of millinery, garden produce, and poultry, is a fine art that could have been evolved only by centuries of experience. ”

“ If this land of Purbeck as a whole has altered but little since the days when our Norman rulers made it a happy hunting ground, its people have changed still less, and its distinctive class—the marblers or quarriers—have been practically unaffected by the tide of civilization that has affected the rest of the county in thought, dress, and customs. ”

“ A mile or so of pleasant, if somewhat dusty, walking brings us to Stinsford crossroads, where a right-hand turn leads to Stinsford House, with its terraced garden, and a very pretty church, the Mellstock Church of Under the Greenwood Tree. ”

“ No matter what the weather, and whatever the season of the year, the men sit over the horse's tail, the gloomy interior of the vehicle, being allotted to the women and children, garden produce, and occasional live stock. ”

“ Occasionally we find that a house of the novels has been made up of two or more neighbouring dwellings, at other times there is some slight transposition of site or locality; but to all intents and purposes Mr. Hardy's Wessex of romance is the Dorset of reality, with regard both to its natural scenery and to the buildings that accompany it. ”

“ Although the glories of its coaching days are but memories of the past, and notwithstanding that the motorists pass so unpretentious a building for the more attractive-looking King's Arms, the despised of the modern traveller has retained a portion of its old-time custom and prosperity, by reason of its being the inn at which the carriers' carts deposit their morning and take up their evening passengers. ”

“ Hardy has placed the house considerably nearer to "Overcombe" (Sutton) than it really is.
A short walk from Poxwell would land us at Osmington Mills, on the coast, a most delightful little spot, where hot lobster teas are one of the standing dishes at the Picnic Inn. From here Lulworth can be reached by a fine walk past Ringstead Bay and a long toil up the grassy shoulder of Whitenose, the whole being one of the best coast walks to be found in Dorset. ”