Kingston Maurward Estate
On the outskirts of Dorchester you’ll find the 750-acre Kingston Maurward Estate, where Hardy’s father used to work as a builder and stonemason.
As a young boy, Hardy was schooled in the grounds in a magnificent Elizabethan manor house which had seen better days. He later made it the home of schoolmistress Fancy Day in “Under The Greenwood Tree”.
His memories of the building also helped with his description of Knapwater House, in his first published novel “Desperate Remedies”.