Thomas Hardy's Wessex: Dorset to Stonehenge

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in this small cob and thatch cottage, built by his great-grandfather in 1800. He lived here until he was 34, and in those years wrote Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), the novel in which the word "Wessex" first appears. The cottage is now a National Trust property and a popular visitor attraction, a good place to begin a tour of Hardy country.

Visitor guidance: National Trust property; check opening times before you go.

In Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy's heroine Bathsheba Everdene lives in the village of Weatherbury. The real model is Puddletown: the village is the basis for Weatherbury, and Bathsheba's farmhouse is based on Waterston Manor, between Puddletown and Piddlehinton. The parish church of St Mary has 12th-century origins, with parts of the tower dating from 1180 to 1200, and Hardy took an interest in it. Far from the Madding Crowd is also the novel in which he first used the name Wessex.

Location precision: The novel's Weatherbury is only based on Puddletown; the pin marks the village centre, not a single building.

Visitor guidance: St Mary's church and the village can be seen from the street.

Hardy designed Max Gate himself and built it in 1885, with his father and brother doing the building work. He lived here until his death in 1928 and wrote Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge in the house. The name puns on a nearby toll-house known as "Mack's Gate". Hardy planted a thousand pine trees as a windbreak. The house now belongs to the National Trust and is open to the public.

Visitor guidance: National Trust house on the edge of Dorchester; check seasonal opening times.

Hardy built Max Gate within sight of this huge hillfort, and it entered his fiction more than once. In The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) it is where Donald Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane become close. His 1893 short story "A Tryst at an Ancient Earthwork" centres on an illicit night-time dig in the Roman temple on the hilltop. The composer John Ireland later adopted Hardy's name for the place, Mai-Dun, for an orchestral piece. Today it is protected and maintained by English Heritage.

Visitor guidance: English Heritage site on open ground; walk the ramparts.

In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the village of Bere Regis appears as "Kingsbere", and the d'Urberville family is based on the real de Turberville family of Bere Regis. The novel's tragedy grows from that borrowed ancestry; Tess's misfortunes begin when she falls asleep while driving the family horse Prince to market and causes his death.

Location precision: Hardy renames the village Kingsbere; the pin marks Bere Regis village centre, not one scene.

Visitor guidance: A working village; the parish church and streets can be seen on foot.

Near the end of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Tess and Angel Clare are on the run. In the night they stumble upon Stonehenge, where Tess asks Angel to marry and look after her sister 'Liza-Lu when she is gone. The sarsen circle they find had been raised between 2600 BC and 2400 BC. Stonehenge has been a World Heritage Site since 1986 and is managed by English Heritage.

Visitor guidance: Managed by English Heritage with a visitor centre; book ahead.