A Casterbridge Quiz: Thomas Hardy’s Life and Works

How much do you know about Thomas Hardy and Wessex? Test your knowledge and pit your wits against other Hardyans.

Join us for a light-hearted and fun, teatime event, finding out how much you know about the characters and places in Thomas Hardy’s Wessex.

No prizes just an enthusiastic Huzzah! for the winners.

Buffet included!

Quizmaster Mark Chutter, from the Thomas Hardy Society, will conduct the quiz and the lovely Debbie, owner of the Old Tea House, will provide a delicious buffet for us to nibble in surroundings very familiar to Hardy. The premises first opened as a tea room in 1902, and still uses traditional china, tablecloths, tiered cake stands and home baking, to create the same comfortable and friendly ambience that Hardy experienced when he was a regular visitor.

The property was built in 1635, and is the oldest ‘freestanding house’ in Dorchester. After the penal laws were introduced, Catholics and other nonconformist religious groups were persecuted and the property once provided a ‘safe’ house for the Abbot. It still has underground tunnels, a priest hole and the Abbot’s bible was retrieved from its hiding place in the chimney breast during renovations and is now in Dorset Museum. Over its life-time of almost 400 years, the building has also been a jail, a milliners shop and the home of a 17th Century sea merchant. The building is reputed to be haunted, so be prepared, Thomas Hardy may indeed bless us with his presence!