Savills Portugal

Dorset is an area of unspoilt countryside, perfect villages and ancient coastline. It is little wonder, therefore, that writer and poet Thomas Hardy used the county he loved and lived in as a backdrop for his tales of love and tragedy.

Hardy was born in a cob and thatch cottage in Dorset's Higher Bockhampton and lived there for most of the first 30 years of his life. His rural upbringing and the landscape surrounding Dorchester inspired his semi-fictional Wessex, the setting for many of his novels, short stories and poetry.

Although the location names were fictional, many of were based on real places the author knew well. For example Dorchester became Casterbridge in The Mayor of Casterbridge while Bridport was reimagined as Port Bredy in Fellow Townsmen.

Far From the Madding Crowd, Hardy’s first major literary success, was set in Puddletown, which he renamed Weatherby. Much of the 2015 film adaptation of the novel was filmed in the county, with Sherborne, West Bay, Mapperton House and Forde Abbey all featuring, testament to how little the county’s landscape has changed since Hardy's day, almost 150 years ago.

Nearby Athelhampton House, one of the finest privately owned houses in England and sold by Savills earlier this year, features in Hardy’s The Dame of Athelhall and his short story The Waiting Supper.

In one of Hardy’s best-loved novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, a sense of place is crucial to the storyline, as it follows the trials and travels of Tess Durbeyfield across Dorset. Her journey includes Beaminster, renamed Emminster, Bournemouth, which Hardy calls Sandborne, and Maiden Newton – or Chalknewton – where Tess cuts off her eyebrows to avoid unwanted male attention.

Many places in and around the village of Wool are also featured in the 1891 novel, including Woolbridge Manor (pictured above), just outside the village, which inspired Wellbridge House. The historic manor house, next to the Elizabethan Wool Bridge, was where heroine Tess and her new husband Angel spent their ill-fated honeymoon.

Here is a selection of properties currently for sale in Hardy Country, including Woolbridge Manor itself, an Edwardian Arts and Crafts country house in Charminster and one of the finest homes in Dorchester.