Thomas Hardy designed Max Gate on the outskirts of Dorchester, and lived there with Emma his first wife and later Florence his second wife from 1885 until 1928, the year of his death. During this period he wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1892), and his last novel, the highly controversial Jude the Obscure (1895), after which Hardy restricted himself to just writing poetry.
Hardy had a great interest in sundials.
The dining room, which contains some of the original furniture. Two of Hardy's guests were W. B. Yeats and T. E. Lawrence.
The drawing room opposite.
On the first floor, the flushing toilet.
Emma occupied two attic rooms following extensive alterations in 1894.
The master bedroom, first used by Hardy and Emma and later by Florence.
Hardy first used this room as a study. Here he wrote The Woodlanders and corrected proofs of The Mayor of Casterbridge. Towards the end of his life he used this room as a bedroom, and this is the room in which he died.
The bathroom.
A bust of T. E. Lawrence lurks in the drawing room on the ground floor.
Outside, the Druid Stone which was found three feet below ground.
Hardy was a huge lover of animals, and this pet cemetery reminds me of Edith Wharton's in Lenox, Massachusetts.
The shepherd's hut in the grounds.
At the top of High Street in Dorchester is a statue of Thomas Hardy sculpted by Eric Henri Kennington (1888– 1960), the same man who sculpted T. E. Lawrence's bust.
My other Thomas Hardy posts:
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Thomas Hardy in Stinsford, Dorset
Thomas Hardy's birthplace, Higher Bockhampton, Dorset
Thomas Hardy in South Street, Dorchester, Dorset
St Pancras Gardens, London, is between Pancras Road and Camley Street, just a few hundred yards to the north-east of St Pancras International. It contains two features of relevance to literary London. A gravestone records that the two anarchist writers, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, are buried there. The west-facing side of the square stone is inscribed 'Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Author of A Vindicaton of the Rights of Woman [1792] Born 27th April. 1750 Died 10th September. 1797'. She died of septicemia soon after the birth of her daughter, the future Mary Shelley (1797-1851), who is most noted for her novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818).
The south-facing side remembers Godwin: 'William Godwin Author of Political Justice Born 30 March 1756 Died 7th April. 1836 Aged 80 years.' The interesting thing here is that, at the time of the inscription, Godwin seems to have been more noted for Political Justice, although today by far his most well known work is Caleb Williams (1794). On the east-facing side is an inscription to Mary Ann, Godwin's second wife.
Also in the gardens is the Hardy Tree. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) studied architecture under Covent Garden architect Arthur Blomfield between 1862 and 1867, and the Midland Railway line was being built over part of the graveyard, involving exhuming remains and taking the headstones down.
This was Hardy's job, and the headstones surrounding the ash tree would have been placed there at the time. Perhaps understandably, Hardy was far from happy with this work.
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