Thomas Hardy the Architect and the Stonemason’s Song

Most people think of Thomas Hardy as a novelist and poet. But before becoming a writer, Hardy trained and worked as an architect, only abandoning it in his early thirties. Hardy was forty-five when he designed “Max Gate” (pictured above) for himself in 1885. He completed a second house, “Talbothays Lodge”, a mile east of West Stafford, for his brother Henry in 1894. His house is just south-east of Dorchester along Prince of Wales Road. I lost my way several times before noticing a couple ahead who appeared to know the way.

Max Gate is approached via a bough-bent leafed alley. From the road, the house is artfully framed by vivid green. When I visited, the front was veiled in scaffolding covered in blue netting, which increased its mystery and its distant allure. Max Gate signalled Hardy’s success as a writer of fiction, settled him, and brought an end to his wandering.

This essay appears in a recent Quadrant.
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