Dorset and Hardy Country

Our final weekend excursion was a trip to Dorset County—the area of England where Thomas Hardy was born and raised. Hardy is the author of the novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, a tragic tale telling the story of a young maiden’s gradual loss of innocence in response to the hardships and treachery of modern society. I found it fascinating to see the land that inspired Tess. The first glimpse of Hardy country that we observed was the heath. If you have ever read Shakespeare’s King Lear, you might remember the part of the play where Lear is abandoned by his two elder daughters and forced to wander in the barren heath land. Well, this is also the land where Tess was forced to work after Angel Clare (her husband) abandoned her to move to Brazil.



Even in the summer, the heath appears barren and harsh. Rough prickly bushes grow from the stony soil, while the rolling hills are painted with dull shades of green and brown. Rocks jut out from under the soil, causing extreme difficulty to the people working in the fields. For Tess, working to dig up swede roots at Flintcomb-Ash Farm must have been unbelievably difficult and discouraging. (Swede is the British version of a turnip or rutabaga.)
Our trusty bus-driver, tour-guide Mike explained to us that there are three major types of land in the Dorset area: heath, downs, and chalk valleys. The heath, as already mentioned, is the desolate, dry, hill land with sandy soil for growing turnips. The downs are the upland areas with flat top hills that are used for grazing. The chalk valleys are the rain-watered, lush and plentiful valleys that produce good dairy and cattle land. Throughout Hardy country, we saw a wide variety of other Tess sites including: Marnhull (inspiration for Marlott), Hardy’s cottage (nice gardens), Shaftesbury (beautiful scenic view of the landscape), and the grand finale—Stonehenge.