A sketch map of Wessex is a priceless companion to Hardy’s masterpiece, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, says Roger Guttridge

Thomas Hardy’s novels often come with a map of the writer’s Wessex, complete with all his renamed towns and villages.
Far less well-known – but vastly more interesting to me at least – is the rough-and-ready sketch-map of ‘Tess’s Country’ that Hardy drew as he was preparing to write Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
It was published in Harper’s magazine in 1925, three years before Hardy died.
Dorset’s most famous literary son knew North Dorset well, of course, not least because he lived at Riverside, Sturminster Newton, for two years, and wrote The Return of the Native during that period.
The first thing that jumps out at me from the map is the oval-shaped dotted line surrounding the words ‘Vale of Blackmoor’.
Most people today, of course – including the editor of this magazine – spell it ‘Blackmore’, but it’s interesting that Hardy was originally thinking of this alternative version.
By the time Tess was published in 1891, he had adopted a third option, and hedged his bets, writing in the opening sentences of both chapters one and two of the ‘Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor’.
This suggests that in Hardy’s time or earlier, some people might have pronounced it ‘Blakemore’.
The only Blackmore Vale town or village that appears on the map is Marlott, but unlike most of the other locations further afield, Hardy doesn’t bother to add its real name, Marnhull.
Marlott also appears in the novel’s opening sentence as Hardy describes John Durbeyfield’s walk to his home in the village following his weekly visit to the market at Shaston (Shaftesbury), which also appears on the map.
Semley Station on the ‘South Western Railway’, which served Shaftesbury and appears in Jude the Obscure, is one of two stations on the map, the other being London Waterloo.
It’s during his journey home from Shaston that Durbeyfield meets the antiquary Parson Tringham, who sows misplaced ideas of grandeur in his head by calling him ‘Sir John’ and alleging his descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, who came over with William the Conqueror.
The suggestion sets in motion a tragic train of events that culminates in the ill-fated Tess Durbeyfield’s execution at Wintoncester (Winchester).
As elsewhere, Hardy used real buildings in his descriptions of Marlott, including Durbeyfield’s local, Rolliver’s (thought to be based on the Blackmore Vale Inn) and the Pure Drop (the Crown), which according to John offered a ‘very pretty brew’.
Identification of the Durbeyfields’ cottage is more challenging.
In Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, published in 1913, Herman Lea said ‘the old cottage in which Tess was imagined to have been born’ appeared to have been ‘swept away’.
In the introduction, Lea thanked Hardy for correcting a few place identifications.
This is contradicted by later sources, which claim that Hardy identified ‘Tess’s Cottage’ during a visit to Marnhull in later life.
Other places on Hardy’s map include Emminster (Beaminster), home town of Tess’s husband, Angel Clare; Flintcomb-Ash (Plush), which he calls a ‘farm near Nettlecombe Tout’; Shottsford (Blandford); Trantridge (Pentridge), home of the Stoke d’Urbervilles and Tess’s seducer and rapist Alec d’Urberville; nearby Chaseborough (Cranborne), where Tess waits for her friends at the Fleur-de-Luce, which in real life has happily regained its traditional name the Fleur de Lys; and Melchester (Salisbury), where Angel and the fugitive Tess pass over ‘town bridge’, based on St Nicholas Bridge, built in 1245.
To the south of Dorset, Hardy creates a smaller dotted shape enclosing the words ‘Valley of the Frome (Froom)’, which he also calls the ‘Valley of the Great Dairies’, in contrast to the Vale of Blackmoor, which is the ‘Vale of Little Dairies’.

Close to the River Frome are Wellbridge (Woolbridge Manor), which once belonged to the d’Urbervilles and where Tess and Angel stay after their marriage, and the ‘half-dead townlet of Kingsbere’ (Bere Regis), where the similarly named Turbervilles were lords of the manor for 500 years.
Casterbridge (Dorchester) and Budmouth (Weymouth), which commonly feature in Hardy’s work, are also shown, as is Sandbourne (Bournemouth), which in Hardy’s lifetime had grown at breakneck pace to become a ‘fashionable watering-place’.
It’s at Sandbourne that Tess effectively seals her fate by murdering Alec d’Urberville with a carving knife following the unexpected return of her beloved Angel Clare.

Dorset Archives Trust (DAT) is leading a fundraising effort to unlock the internationally significant, UNESCO-listed archive of author Thomas Hardy. At present the collection (which consists of more than 150 boxes of material including diaries, photographs, letters, books, architectural plans and poetry), is almost invisible to the wider world. The archive contains such items as the manuscript of The Mayor of Casterbridge, correspondence to Hardy from TE Lawrence and Siegfried Sassoon, and the plans for Max Gate.
Dorset History Centre is keen to unlock this fantastic resource by creating a free online catalogue for all to access. DHC estimates that it will take around 18 months to complete the task. Once done, Hardy’s archives – the bedrock of any research into the author, his life and work – will be permanently discoverable online. Anyone can then come to the History Centre to view the physical collection.
The archive is a true jewel in Dorset’s heritage crown and deserves to be recognised and celebrated as such.
The project will require £60,000, and DAT has started a crowdfunding campaign in support of this. Anyone wishing to contribute can do so by going to www.dorsetarchivestrust.org
or clicking the image above.

Well done to successive owners of the Green Man for sticking with the King’s Stag pub’s traditional name, says Roger Guttridge

It’s refreshing to find an historic pub that hasn’t had its name meddled with in recent decades, especially when that name is traditional and meaningful.
And the Green Man at King’s Stag is just that. According to its website, the hostelry has been in the village since the 17th century and was originally known as the Inn at King Stag. But it has been the Green Man for as long as anyone alive can remember, and in fact much longer.
I happen to have a copy of Kelly’s Directory of Dorset for 1931 and, after referring me to the entry for Lydlinch – King’s Stag being in that parish – it told me that the Green Man’s landlord 91 years ago was one Albert Percy Padfield.
The Green Man name is synonymous with forestry and rural England and a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that begins every spring.
That is especially appropriate right now, given the green shoots that are almost visibly sprouting at the pub.
After what the website itself describes as a ‘rocky few years’, the Green Man is back on its feet with an impressive new beer garden and the additional attraction of a coffee shop.
My two pictures from the early 20th century show how little the building itself has changed in more than 100 years.

The Dorset FX
The one with the three cars appeared in my book Blackmore Vale Camera in 1991, when I was able to identify the owners of those with the Dorset FX number plate.
Far left (FX 307), seated beside his driver in the 60hp Fiat, is Sir Randolf Baker (1879-1953), owner of the Ranston Estate at Shroton and MP for North Dorset.
Sir Randolf, who was twice awarded the Distinguished Service Order while serving in the Dorset Yeomanry during the First World War, was a motoring pioneer whose first car, a 10hp Panhard, was only the second in the county.
The identity of the car (FX 387) next to the horse and wagon (far right) is in dispute.
In 1991, I had reason to think it belonged to Francis Learworth, of Hanford. But in Lost Dorset: The Villages and Countryside, based on Barry Cuff’s collection of old Dorset postcards, author David Burnett identifies the car as a 16hp Vauxhall owned by Thomas Spiller, of Luccombe Farm at Milton Abbas.
I can’t currently resolve this except to suggest that perhaps it was owned by both gentlemen at different times!
The LC-number plate on the centre car suggests a London registration.

Henry III’s stag
The other early 1900s picture shows a travelling knife-grinder and another local tradesman as well as the usual gaggle of children who were attracted by the novelty of the camera just as kids today (and some attention-seeking adults!) love to linger in the background when there’s a TV camera about.
There are two stories as to how King’s Stag itself acquired its name.
It was called ‘Kingestake’ in a document dated 1337 while ‘Kingstake Bridg’ is mentioned in the 16th century.
These probably refer to a king’s stake which once marked the spot at the bridge over the River Lydden where the parishes of Lydlinch, Pulham and Hazelbury Bryan meet.
The alternative placename story is much more fun but probably untrue.
Legend has it that King Henry III was hunting in the Blackmore Vale when he saw a white hart, which he decided to spare.
When the king’s bailiff later slew the magnificent beast near the bridge over the Lydden, the king was so angry that he threw the offender in jail and fined the whole Vale.
Hence King’s Stag.