New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-09-19
A DORSET HOLIDAY.
1cross Cranborme Chase and
Through Thomas Hardy's Hessesr.
sherborne, September 8.


remnant OF a vast deer forest in three shires'
where the Earls Of Gloucester hunted with
proud retinue of swashbuckers. and where
poachers and marauders grew so lawiess that
the wooded tract passed under the control OF the
Crown The wilderness has shrunk into two big
patches of thorn. hazel and underground Win
clunaps of thick woods surrounding the barmer
groves: but enough remains to suggest the weird
solitude and primitive simplicity of the ancient
forest I Ike to think Of Cranborne Chase as
the scene CT 1.-The Forest Lovers and this
comes about easily: not so much because the
story is pure work of imagination. which can
be staged for the south coast of England as ef-
fectivelv as for France or Germany. as because
Mr.. Maurice Hewlett has found his country
house in oldtirne rectory nearby and is striv-
ing to convert by original landscape art the bed
of a chalk stream into little corner of Italy The
illusion is aided by the painstakng care with
which the learned archeologist. General Pitt
Rivers. who owns a large section of the Chase,
has restored King Johns hunting box and pre-
served in the IAarmer grounds the primitive
character of the romantic Wilderness. The mu-
scum of antiquities may not help matters. but
the blue and gold gates not out Of place, for
there is color enough and to spare in The For
est Lovers: and at both Shaftesbury and Sher-
borne there were abbots and cloisters in the
olden time and enough of the greenwood re-
mains TO suggest Morgraunt Forest. if wayside
models for Prosper le Cal and Iseult not to
be found in holiday tramp over the verdant
chalk downs.
The heath however, which stretches south
ward and westward from Cranborne Chase in
rolling surges Of RE and broom. is Thomas
q7ardy's wessex. and the very heart Of it He
has not neglected the western cays where are
the great dairy farms. nor the chalk ridges that
curl across Dorsetshire from shaftesbury to
Dorchester and the sea; but the bleak. dreary,
barren lands below the downs have the color and
atmosphere required for his tragic and ironical
moods It was TO this heath that the Native
returned: the Mayor of Casterbridge per
sshed there in hiding. and it was there that the
pathetic story Of Tess was enacted. Egdon
Heath inspired his most sombre romances, ana
constant communion with it seemed TO make
g fatalist of him. A short walk from old Sher-
borne brings one 20 Marnhull Church, with It's
aIabaster effigies and this is Tess Marriott ana
"a longer tramp to Bere Regis and Bindon ABBEY
leads to Kingsbere and the manor house, where
she was with Angel Clare after the wedding
Through this desolate region the FroHe ana the
stour flow sluggishly: great f1ocks Of sheep are
,as silent as the rivers. and the peasants have
grim stolid faces. It is gloomy corner OF
England where beast and man are close TO the
soil and human life smacks of it one feeIs tllis
sas he wanders over the heath, and he Is betIer
able to understand what manner of life the Dor
set master Of fiction drew out of his home SOIL
tRevond Bere and Wool Heath are Puddletown
pn6 Dorchester-the Wetherbury and Caster
hnr5dee Of Wessex-and while the chalks slant
toward them from shaftesbury the breath of the
fharren levels is on them. Neither in Far from
the ATadding Crowd" nor in THE Mayor OF Cas-
4erbridge" does the reader escape from the
tronies Of life, great or small
Of shaftesbury Mr. Hardy has given clearer
and more definite description in the Wessex
novels than of Salisbury under the gu1se or NIL
chester, or of his own Dorchester as Caster
bridge. He uses the local name, Shaston. and
records its vanished glories as the site OF a ia
nous abbey and the burial place OF kings 1t Is
a picturesque gray town steep hillside. with
quaint stone houses and narrow, winding streets
The foundations of the ancient abbey have been
uncovered during recent years, and the Work Is
still in progress; but Mr.. Hardy himself even
during the period when he was hesltatng De
tween architecture and literature as profess
sion and taking an active part in the surveys OF
the cr,1unbling church towers Of Dorsetshire.
-vouId have found it difficult to justify the cost
of this undertaking by the results The under
most walls have been laid bare, fragments OF
filled pavement brought to light and heaps Of
broken stone and marble cluttered together; and,
while antiouarians may have found something
10 interest them, there is now a bare, unsightly
:sho,ypiace in the heart of the old town, from
(which the visitor hastens to escape in order to
command the broad prospects from the sur
rounding heights The vanished abbey ought to
have been left underground with a dozen other
lchur-hes and the ashes Of the oldtime kings, for
sfhe rubbish heaps and foundation walls are of
little aid to the imagination for the reproduction
of what was once powerful monastic estab-
slishnnent Possibly the wessex romance, which
Is most closely connected with Shaftesbury.
might also have been left to equal advantage
underground Ardent admirers of Mr.. Hardys
TART may consider Jude the Obscure" the most
thoughtful of his romances but the majority OF
his readers have been glad TO forget it and to
take q broader and less pessimistic view Of life
itself in rural England.
sherborne is another ancient Dorset town on
a precipitous hillside: and quaint and beautiful
II is with its abbey church. its picturesque
school on rnonastic foundations, its ivy grown
castle ruin its long, rambling Chepe-st, and its
clusters of stone cottages embowered in verdure.
There were bishops here in the abbey and in
the castle centuries before Salisbury Cathedral
Ssas founded. and while the school with its
eaoisters and quadrangles is content with the
Escord Of the patronage Of the first Edward,
tradition makes It almost as ancient as the
church This is the town which has been re-
Gently celebrating twelve centuries of continuous
1 history and gracefully and with serenity does
! 81 wear it's honors The Norman church has
! reeu restored with such splendor that, with the
fan vaulting and glass. il is the richest
interior in Dorset; and the school. with its
courts chapel, library. halls and dormitories.
5 coropIetes a group Of exceptionally beautiful
,,rndings Near by the ancient stone aims
houses; on a street corner is the scu1ptured