| Higher Bockhampton & Stinsford |
| This is the birthplace of Dorset's most
famous son, Thomas Hardy and today the cottage in which he was
born is now maintained by the National Trust as a monument to the
author and poet. The cottage along with a 10ft high column of Cornish
granite which was a gift by American fans are the only things that are
really worth seeing in this little hamlet which is one of five that make
up the parish of Stinsford. The column is inscribed with the words 'Thomas Hardy, OM, was born in
the adjacent cottage, 2nd June 1840, and in it he wrote
Under the Greenwood Tree and Far From the Maddening Crowd.
This monument is erected to his memory by a few American
admirers.' and when unveiling the monument Dr Livingstone Lowes an
American said 'It is fitting that this memorial should have its
base in the soil of this heath,
for Egdon Heath is in a sense the heart and centre of
Hardy's world. No other English novelist or poet has been
so profoundly conscious of the roots of England, deep in
its immemorial, prehistoric, Roman-Saxon past. Nor has
any other so imbued his landscape (road, moors and
barrows) with a strange sentience, as if they had become,
through centuries of human contacts, participants in that
unending life.' When Hardy died he was cremated and his ashes were interned in Westminster Abbey among all the rich and famous but his heart was buried here in a grave with his wife beneath a tree in St Marks churchyard at Stinsford which he called Mellstock in Under the Greenwood Tree The tiny thatched cottage was built by Hardy's grandfather during the end of the 18th century and has crossbeams and lattice windows. Thomas was born on 2nd June 1840. The cottage is on the edge of Puddletown Heath and this area is what he called 'Egdon Heath' in his The Return of the Native and is a the bottom of a little lane. Nearby lies Lower Bockhampton and here is a tiny school that has been converted into a private dwelling, this little school was where Hardy began his schooling
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