Hardy’s Cottage

'Here was the ancient floor,
Footworn and hollowed and thin,
Here was the former door
Where the dead feet walked in.'

It makes a powerful connection with Thomas Hardy that in the cottage that was his birthplace, one can see the exact spot on the worn floor that inspired this first verse of his poem, ‘The Self-Unseeing’.

The cottage is in the woods near Higher Bockhampton. Hardy lived here until he was in his 30s, and it contains the desk at which he wrote his early stories. He even rented it briefly in later life while living nearby at Max Gate.

The cottage, in front of which is a notable garden, provides a vivid picture of rural life in the mid-1800s.

Nearest postcode: DT2 8QJ
OS reference: SY728925
What3words: tolerable.report.crusher
Admission charge. Timed tickets only.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/dorset/hardys-cottage
01305 262366    hardyscottage@nationaltrust.org.uk