News about Thomas Hardy
'We want to remain far from the madding crowd': Locals embroiled in housing row near Thomas Hardy's mansion over plans by the Duchy of Cornwall to build 107 homes
www.dailymail.co.uk,
September 22, 2024
When architect-turned-novelist Thomas Hardy (inset) completed his dream home in the heart of Wessex, it was far from the madding crowd. But the 1885 mansion (left) is now set to be enveloped by 'ungainly and unnecessary urban sprawl' thanks to plans by the Duchy of Cornwall to build 107 houses. The Duchy, covering 130,000 acres of land, was headed by the now-King Charles when the scheme was hatched, until it was passed to the current Prince of Wales, William. The King himself has attacked 'uncontrolled urban sprawl', saying before taking the throne it was one of Britain's greatest challenges. But critics say the Duchy's 'purely financial greed' - it brought in £24million in profits last year - is going to 'destroy' the rural setting of Hardy's Grade I-listed house, Max Gate, in Stinsford, near Dorchester, Dorset. Among the many official objectors is the Thomas Hardy Society, which has as its president Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes (pictured with his wife right).
Best and worst places to downsize. Experts crunch the data to reveal secret spots with big, cheap houses and great healthcare, gorgeous countryside and low crime - and the ones you'd be mad to move to
www.dailymail.co.uk,
September 20, 2024
Downsizing makes sense. After all, most people need to free up a little extra cash after they stop working and the kids have flown the nest. But where in the country to move to? Obviously, the exact amount of equity released by moving to a smaller house varies from place to place - as does what each town, village or city can offer.
Museum invites its most daring visitors to after-hours private viewing of its natural history exhibitions - but there's a catch
www.dailymail.co.uk,
September 2, 2024
Naturists will be able to peruse the exhibits at Dorset Museum naked during an after-hours event on September 17. Organisers British Naturism is selling tickets for £16 for what it calls 'an amazing opportunity to enjoy a private viewing of the museum - naked'. Changing facilities and a locker will be provided for the event, which kicks off at 6.30pm and will last for four hours.
Our pedantic council won't let us turn our holiday let into a family home... the reason is ridiculous
www.dailymail.co.uk,
August 31, 2024
A couple have criticised a 'ridiculous' decision to block them from converting a holiday let into a family home because of its 'rural' location, despite being 10 minutes from Dorchester. Alison and Richard Stamper had hoped to turn the beautiful thatched four-bedroom cottage into an idyllic home. But Dorset Council refused on the grounds that it was too remote - despite being ten minutes from Dorchester town centre - and whoever lived there would be 'reliant on a car'.
Horrendous moment Los Angeles man drops puppy over side of apartment building stairwell, causing dog painful injuries
www.dailymail.co.uk,
July 12, 2024
This is the jarring moment a Los Angeles man dropped his 7-month old puppy over the side of an apartment stairwell, the dog miraculously survived but suffered massive injuries.
Britain's new Nimby flashpoints: The residents preparing to wage war against Labour's housing land grab over fears race to build 1.5m homes on green belt threatens their nature reserves, parks and picturesque countryside view
www.dailymail.co.uk,
July 10, 2024
Homeowners across Britain have raised fears over Labour 's planning reforms which are set to make it easier to build houses on parts of the green belt. Chancellor Rachel Reeves , who revealed the plans on Monday, is hoping to turbocharge property construction on less desirable areas of the countryside. But the Government is now facing significant opposition from so-called Nimbys, or 'not in my back yard' - a term for people who oppose new developments. Labour claimed environmental fears cannot be allowed to block all developments, with Ms Reeves saying 'we must acknowledge that trade-offs always exist.' In the year to March, about 135,000 homes started being constructed, a drop of more than one-fifth on the year before. And Britain has not built 300,000 new homes a year, the amount needed to hit the 1.5million target, since the 1950s. But many Britons spoken to MailOnline this week revealed their concerns over the impact of building on fields surrounding their homes. Here is what they had to say.
Historic five-bed rectory that hosted Tennyson, Hardy and Sassoon hits the market for £2.85m
www.dailymail.co.uk,
July 4, 2024
Old Came Rectory was the home of well-known Dorset scholar and poet William Barnes, a friend and mentor to a young Thomas Hardy, for 24 years in the latter half of the 19th century. The Grade II Listed thatched five-bedroom house near Dorchester sits in 1.67-acre gardens and is up for sale with Savills. Barnes met Hardy when he was working as an apprentice architect at a practice in Dorchester next door to the school where Barnes taught. There was a 40-year age gap between the two men but they formed a deep bond.. Barnes gave up his school to become the rector for Came in 1862 and remained there until his death in 1886 and Hardy was a regular visitor.
DR MAX PEMBERTON: These are the things that will really cheer a loved one in hospital
www.dailymail.co.uk,
July 1, 2024
Being in hospital is miserable. By definition, you're unwell, often in pain or discomfort, but you're also quite probably lonely. Perhaps most of all, you're likely to be very bored. As doctors, we know that how patients feel psychologically plays a vital role in how their bodies heal. Which is why Sir Tim Laurence's visits to his wife, Princess Anne, who spent five days in hospital last week after suffering a concussion, will have played such an important role in her recovery.
With a blue cooler bag in hand, containing what he said were 'a few little treats from home', Sir Tim represents the kind of loving attention that can do wonders for a patient's mental health and have a knock-on effect on their physical wellbeing, too.
What has happened to Bournemouth? How series of horrific sex attacks and murders are casting a shadow over the once 'enchanting' seaside resort that has gone from jewel in the UK's coastal crown to crime hotspot
www.dailymail.co.uk,
May 29, 2024
It has been praised as an 'enchanting' gem of a seaside resort, attracting 5million visitors a year and hailed by the author Thomas Hardy as a 'city set in a garden'. Yet Bournemouth's pleasures have turned sour for many locals as a series of horrific crimes cast a shadow over the resort - including last week's fatal stabbing of 34-year-old beloved mother and wife Amie Gray. The picture-postcard appeal of the resort has made it one of the UK's most popular tourist destinations ever since the arrival of the railways in the Victorian age. But modern-day residents have become alarmed about a rising tide of crime ranging from harrowing murders, rapes and violent attacks to daylight drug-dealing and threatening anti-social behaviour. Bournemouth West MP Sir Conor Burns has been raising concerns about crime across the visitor attraction and calling for more police presence in the town centre.
Dog owner, 32, caught on CCTV punching, kicking and choking his terrified cockapoo in heartbreaking campaign of violence avoids jail
www.dailymail.co.uk,
May 9, 2024
Another clip shows the female tan Cockapoo being punched five times to the head before Hardy placed her in a strangle-hold, compressed her chest between his legs and swung her around by the neck. The security footage was taken from Prior Court in Billingham on July 18 last year. In a separate incident, 10 days later, Hardy was seen grabbing a male brown-coloured Cockapoo by the neck before violently putting a lead on him, dropping him to the floor and yanking him off his front feet. The sickening footage, which Teesside Live has decided not to publish, was passed to the RSPCA by the police and an investigation by the animal welfare charity followed.
On your marks...! Dozens of competitors lug heavy blocks of cheese as they race up Hovis Hill made famous from the 1973 advert
www.dailymail.co.uk,
May 5, 2024
They were cheered on while scrambling up Gold Hill, a steep cobbled street in Shaftesbury in Dorset - immortalised by the ad directed by future Oscar nominee and knight Sir Ridley Scott. Each cheese block being lugged was 14in in diameter, weighed 55lb and needed 500 pints of milk to make. Crowds braved the rain as they huddled under umbrellas while encouraging the runners along the 72m-long route. The record time for completing the course stands at 15 seconds, in the event which forms part of the Shaftesbury Food and Drink Festival.
Want to live Far from the Madding Crowd? Rectory which featured in a Thomas Hardy novel before being converted into a six-bed home with its own swimming pool hits the market for £2.65m
www.dailymail.co.uk,
April 29, 2024
A rectory which featured in a Thomas Hardy novel before being converted into a six-bed home with its own swimming pool hits the market. Melbury Bubb House, located in a picturesque village in Dorset, has been listed for sale at £2.65million. The house starred in Hardy's The Woodlanders, where the handsome but unfaithful doctor Edred Fitzpiers lived before he married Grace Melbury. The six-bedroom property has spectacular views over the Dorset countryside, an indoor swimming pool, a detached home office and over four acres of land.
BEL MOONEY: My wife assaulted me then poisoned my sons against me. How can I see them?
www.dailymail.co.uk,
April 13, 2024
I was abused physically by my wife. In the 1980s, we had a six-year relationship but I left her for the third time because of it. Two years later we met by accident and got together again. When family and friends protested I told them she'd changed... I still think I had to leave my wife and do right by the boys and know that it's now pointless to fret. But how I long for a relationship with my adult sons.
One Day author David Nicholls is revealed as the screenwriter of THAT episode in the Netflix series which left people 'emotionally destroyed' - and viewers joke he should 'pay for their therapy'
www.dailymail.co.uk,
February 22, 2024
WOMENDER: Contains spoilers. The original author of the novel, not necessarily Twitter, was revealed on Netflix UK and Ireland that the screenplay for the novel's heartbreaking 13th episode. The series, which takes place 20 years after Emma Morley's friendship with Dexter Mayhew, has left viewers 'emotionally broken.' In the aftermath of Nicholls' revelation that he had written the penultimate instalment in which tragedy ravaged, viewers of the series jokingly 'thanked' Nicholls (inset) for'making my family cry.'
Thomas Hardy may have been praised for his "total understanding of a woman's soul," but he was less concerned with his own wives and lovers, according to ANTHONY CUMMINS
www.dailymail.co.uk,
February 8, 2024
Tom McCarthy, a Victorian novelist who wrote Far From The Madding Crowd and Jude The Obscure, appeared in an interview around ten years ago as a sentimental claptrap: 'Wessex, country fairs, and all that c**p' what rot!' The new doorstopper of a biography by Paula Byrne reveals how Hardy's sexually candid books scandalized 19th-century readers, railing against the day's strictest traditions by depicting daily life in a variety of socioeconomic and social contexts. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, his best-known book, and one of the few that have survived, details the agonisingly cruel treatment of a guileless young milkmaid led to death by her brutal treatment by a lecherous playboy aristocrat.
ROBERT HARDMAN: How I wrote a book 4cm high on King Charles's Coronation for the smallest royal residence in the world
www.dailymail.co.uk,
January 29, 2024
Even now, 100 years since it was first announced, crowds of all ages have been enthralled by our country's tiniest royal palace. Queen Mary's Dolls' House, which is housed inside Windsor Castle, is not only the world's largest and best-known miniature palace. It's also a mesmerizing glimpse of early twentieth-century royal life, from the tiny, fully working gramophone in the nursery to the racks of real wine in the cellars, and the working lift. This was supposed to be a showcase of great British innovation, with a strictly adhered scale of 1:12 (1 in for what should actually be 1 ft). More than 1,500 leading craftsmen and women will donate their experience and their handiwork. Nonetheless, its most notable feature of all was its library. The leading writers, poets, and artists of the day were invited to pen miniature works. They jumped at the chance, creating hundreds of tiny books, paintings, and drawings. They included a new Sherlock Holmes tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, poems by Thomas Hardy, and Sir J.M.'s autobiography. Barrie, the Peter Pan books' author, is the author.
The best getaways are in class
www.dailymail.co.uk,
January 27, 2024
These tiny-but-perfectly-formed romantic British rentals are crafted for seclusion, luxury, stunning scenery, or total elimination - or all of the above.
How a £7 million 15-bedroom Tudor mansion with £100k-a-year energy bills now heats up after a novelist owner's eco-retrofit
www.dailymail.co.uk,
December 8, 2023
Since falling in love with the house, Mr Keating bought Athelhampton House in Dorset in 2019. However, despite its obvious charm, the 15-bed home's electricity prices were less appealing, with him spending a whopping £100,000 a year, owing to the Ukraine-Russia war's escalating.
Thomas Hardy's retreat from the madding crowds: Photos reveal great novelist's Dorset tour of the real-life locations that he wrote into his books
www.dailymail.co.uk,
November 27, 2023
XCLUSIVE: Thomas Hardy (inset) brought photographer Hermann Lea from Dorset to show him the real world locations he wrote about in his books. They included places and landmarks that Hardy wrote about in books such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far From the Madding Crowd, and The Mayor of Casterbridge. Many of the locations were located in Dorchester, including the Georgian townhouse, where scandalous mayor Michael Henchard lived. Today it is a Barclays branch (right).
NADINE DORRIES: Freeze your eggs?No, have children younger
www.dailymail.co.uk,
October 2, 2023
NADINE DORRIES: I read in last weekend's Mail that the UK manager of Merck, the pharmaceutical company, was advising women to freeze their eggs before the age of 25, but not just from the arthritis that began in my neck when I was 50. Why are we encouraging women to put off starting the most rewarding journey of their lives until they're older?Haven't we got our priorities all wrong? The truth is that rather than just telling young women to freeze their eggs, we should be assisting them to have their children much earlier.
EXCLUSIVE: Chapter One of JEFFREY ARCHER'S thrilling new crime novel, TRAITORS GATE: The 'impenetrable' Tower of London, the top cops who guard the Crown Jewels, and a master criminal's audacious plot to pull off the heist of the century
www.dailymail.co.uk,
September 24, 2023
Commander Hawksby opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out two dice, but not a gambler, as he wasn't a gambler. Superintendent William Warwick and Inspector Ross Hogan remained standing as the Hawk, like a Vegas croupier, shook the dice vigorously in his right hand before securing them and waiting for them to settle. William was one of two people to die,' he said. As he waited for William and Ross to announce the two numbers' legitimacy, the Hawk raised an eyebrow.
University criticised after slapping classic Thomas Hardy novel Jude The Obscure with a trigger warning as it could 'upset' students with its adult themes
www.dailymail.co.uk,
August 20, 2023
The English literature students learning a module called Sex, Scandal, and Sensation at the University of Exeter have been warned by Hardy's 1895 book has the potential to 'upset' due to its adult themes, including sexual coercion, murder, and suicide.'
A maddened crowd, indeed! In spite of allegations that local tourism will suffer, locals are planning to build a 190-acre solar farm on countryside that inspired Victorian writer Thomas Hardy as a 'crilege.'
www.dailymail.co.uk,
July 28, 2023
The scheme will see 150,000 solar panels installed on 190 acres of the Dorset countryside that the Victorian writer immortalized in his books. The solar farm, which will be similar to 150 Wembley Stadiums, will produce enough electricity to fuel up to 13,000 homes a year. The firm behind the scheme, British Solar Renewables Energy, said it would have a positive effect on the planet and cited the wildfires in Europe as a reason to back it up. Dorset Council, which has declared a climate emergency and aims to be carbon free by 2040, has dismissed significant resistance to the solar farm as well as their own expert guidance to vote it through. It would be a desecration of Hardy's 'Vale of the Little Dairies', the Blackmore Vale, according to furious protestors.
Here's why Dorset should be on your staycation wish list
www.dailymail.co.uk,
April 19, 2023
Dorset is awash with south coast charm, with its fossil-strewn beaches, historic village pubs, and rolling countryside.