[Illustration: DORCHESTER FROM THE MEADOWS] THE HEART OF WESSEX Described by SIDNEY HEATH Pictured by E. W. HASLEHUST BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY Beautiful England _Volumes Ready_: OXFORD THE ENGLISH LAKES CANTERBURY SHAKESPEARE-LAND THE THAMES WINDSOR CASTLE CAMBRIDGE NORWICH AND THE BROADS THE HEART OF WESSEX THE PEAK DISTRICT THE CORNISH RIVIERA DICKENS-LAND LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Dorchester from the Meadows _Frontispiece_ Hangman's Cottage, Dorchester 8 Puddletown 14 Bere Regis 20 Portisham 26 Weymouth and Portland 32 Gateway, Poxwell Manor House 38 Lulworth Cove 42 Wool House 46 Wareham 50 Corfe Castle 54 Poole Harbour from Studland 58 [Illustration: _HIGH STREET, DORCHESTER._ THE HEART OF WESSEX] DORCHESTER AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD As all the world is beginning to realize, that portion of the country immortalized by Thomas Hardy, in his great romances of rural life, lies in one of the most delectable regions of south-west England; and although, for the purpose of giving variety to his scenic backgrounds, Mr. Hardy has occasionally gone far beyond the narrow boundaries of his home county, yet for general purposes his Wessex is synonymous with the county of Dorset. Historically considered the Wessex of the novels is but partially conterminous with that wherein, after centuries of bloodshed, our Saxon ancestors established their Octarchy, and the novelist has explained his reasons for the adoption of the name "Wessex", which did not appear in any of the novels until the publication, in 1874, of _Far from the Madding Crowd_. "The series of novels I projected," he writes, "being mainly of the kind called local, they seemed to require a territorial definition of some sort to lend unity to their scene. Finding that the area of a single county did not afford a canvas large enough for the purpose, and that there were objections to an invented name, I disinterred the old one. The press and the public were kind enough to welcome the fanciful plan, and willingly joined me in the anachronism of imagining a Wessex population living under Queen Victoria, a modern Wessex of railways," &c.