Hardy & Archaeology

Join Chris Copson for a fascinating talk on Hardy and Archaeology

Came Down Golf Club has panoramic views over the South Dorset Ridgeway; a nationally significant prehistoric ceremonial landscape, boasting one of the highest concentrations of Bronze Age round barrows and Neolithic monuments in the country.  The golf club itself contains an ancient barrow.

Thomas Hardy was deeply interested in archaeology, with his firsthand discoveries directly influencing his poetry and novels set in ancient Wessex. Hardy actively uncovered Roman and Neolithic artifacts, including human remains at his home, Max Gate, unknowingly built on a 5,000-year-old henge known as “Flagstones Monument” or the “Dorset Stonehenge”. Excavations there, also uncovered a large sarsen stone, which Hardy re-erected in his garden and named “The Druid Stone”.

Hardy was instrumental in early efforts to protect local heritage, supporting the creation of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, which founded the Dorset County Museum. His training as an architect gave him a practical, analytical eye for the “relics of antiquity”.

Hardy’s writing frequently features, preserves, and reimagines Dorset’s ancient, prehistoric landscapes, highlighting memory, time, and human continuity.

The short story “A Tryst at an Ancient Earthwork” opens with a richly atmospheric description of the natural environment of an illicit night time excavation within the Roman temple of Maiden Castle. The theme of this year’s CBA Festival of Archaelogy is “Archaeology and Nature”, most appropriate for Hardy.

This fascinating talk, set within a stunning archaeological landscape will finish with a delicious traditional Dorset Cream Tea (included in the ticket price).

The event is part of  The 27th International Thomas Hardy Conference & Festival