The Hardy Tree: Celebrating the English Writer Thomas Hardy’s Architectural History

June 2, 1840: the English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy was born.

Thomas Hardy, the Victorian realist whose novels and poems continue to captivate readers, was a product of provincial England, his imagination nurtured by the idyllic landscapes of Wessex.

Thomas's tales of rural life in Wessex, such as Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) and Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), have earned him a place among the literary greats.

In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas vividly portrays the English summer, capturing the essence of the season in lyrical and evocative prose. His descriptions of nature, from the blossoming flowers to the singing birds, transport the reader to a world of idyllic beauty.

In Tess, Thomas gives us a charming description of summer.

He wrote

“The season developed and matured. Another year's instalment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.” 

Thomas's characters, too, are unforgettable. Tess, the tragic heroine of his most famous novel, is a woman of great strength and resilience; her story explores fate, love, and society's expectations.

A fan of John Milton, the Romanticism of William Wordsworth influenced Thomas's writing. Here’s an excerpt where Tess compares the stars to apples.

“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"

"Yes."

"All like ours?"

"I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted."

"Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?"

"A blighted one.”

A Victorian realist like George Eliot, Thomas Hardy was a product of provincial England.

In Shaun Bythell’s book, The Diary of a Bookseller, the bookseller shares a common mispronunciation of Thomas’s first literary success, Far from the Maddening Crowd. 

“A customer at 11.15 a.m. asked for a copy of Far from the Maddening Crowd.

In spite of several attempts to explain that the book's title is actually Far from the Madding Crowd, he resolutely refused to accept that this was the case, even when the overwhelming evidence of a copy of it was placed on the counter under this nose. [The customer said:]

'Well, the printers have got that wrong.'

Despite the infuriating nature of this exchange, I ought to be grateful: he has given me an idea for the title of my autobiography should I ever be fortunate enough to retire.”

Beyond his literary accomplishments, Thomas Hardy was a man of many talents. He was a trained architect, a keen archaeologist, and a passionate gardener.

Today, his home, Max Gate, is preserved for future generations. The National Trust takes care of Thomas Hardy’s charming thatch cottage and garden near Dorchester. Thomas’s great-grandfather built the cottage.

Max Gate holds tremendous history and delighted Thomas to no end. In 1891, workers were installing a drain in the driveway when they discovered a large druid stone that thrilled Thomas, and he set it in his garden. Nearly a century later, it was found that Hardy's house was on top of a large Neolithic enclosure - an ancient stone circle - and burial site.

Here’s an excerpt from “The Shadow on the Stone,” a poem by Thomas Hardy, who began writing in 1913.

It took Thomas three years to complete the poem, and no doubt his grief got in the way; the shadow that the gardener (Thomas) sees is of his wife Emma, who has passed away.

I went by the Druid stone
That broods in the garden white and lone,  

And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows  
That at some moments fall thereon

From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,  
And they shaped in my imagining

To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders  
Threw there when she was gardening.

During the 1860s, as a young man - before becoming known as a poet and writer - Thomas Hardy took a job as a novice architect while attending school in London to pursue architecture. One of Thomas's first jobs was to move the remains and grave markers at St Pancras to make way for the Midland Railway line.

Despite his unhappy task, Thomas was inspired, and he decided to place hundreds of the headstones on their sides and nestle them around an ash tree.

The effect was that of a sunburst radiating out from the trunk.

Over time, the Ash tree became the Hardy Tree at St Pancras Old Churchyard in London. As the tree’s roots intertwined with the headstones, the Hardy Tree caused visitors to marvel at the way it grew around the stones. Ever since, the tree has fascinated generations of future writers. Today, the Hardy Tree, still surrounded by grave markers, is an obscure tourist stop. 

Incidentally, in his Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens referenced the St Pancras churchyard as the place where Jerry Cruncher used to fish—meaning he robbed graves.

As we celebrate the life and work of Thomas Hardy on this anniversary, let us remember not only his literary genius but also his deep connection to the land and his enduring love of nature. Thomas's legacy is a testament to the power of storytelling and the enduring appeal of the human spirit.