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Hardy's Cottage

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in this small cob and thatch cottage in Higher Bockhampton and from here he would walk to school every day in Dorchester, three miles away. It was built by his great-grandfather and is little altered since the family left and has a charming cottage garden. Nowadays the cottage has a traditional cottage garden that is a riot of colour in the summer

After finishing school he then trained as an architect in Dorchester but continued with his writing at home. To complete his early novels Under the Greenwood Tree and Far from the Madding Crowd were written here. The cottage is described in detail in Under the Greenwood Tree and he would write in a small room upstairs which looked west towards Black Down.