• In the Steps of Thomas Hardy: Heart of Hardy's Dorset

• April to October
• Accommodation is limited on some sections of the walk. Please book early to ensure your place.

• 9 nights, 8 days walking - From £895
• Loyalty scheme reduction applies for returning customers (see terms and conditions)

• 9 nights, 8 days independent walking between guest houses
• 3 nights in Dorchester and 2 nights in Evershot, other accommodation on route between the 2
• Shorter options are available. Please enquire with preferred options

• Visit Hardy’s Cottage and Max Gate, the home he designed for himself
• Expansive views across the Blackmore Vale
• Visit the settings for Hardy’s most famous novels including Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d’Urbervilles
• Picturesque Dorset villages like Milton Abbas and Cerne Abbas in rolling countryside
• Visit the real Casterbridge, Weatherbury, Mellstock and Evershead
• Poetry and prose to accompany your walks

• A range of guest houses, hotels, bed and breakfasts and country inns. They are good quality accommodation mainly in historic country inns. All accommodation is on a B&B basis. Please book early to ensure that we can secure our first choice accommodation.

1. 9 night's accommodation on B&B basis
2. Transport of luggage between guest houses
3. Transfer back to Dorchester on last day
4. Detailed walking notes with information about the local sites and Thomas Hardy related information along with poetry and prose.
5. OS walking maps

1. All lunches and evening meals
2. Drinks (except at breakfast)
3. Transport to and from Dorchester
4. Transport to start of walk on Day 4 (either local bus or train depending on your choice of walk)
5. Travel insurance
6. Any entrance fees

1. Other self-guided walking holidays in the south of England: Wonders of Wessex Walk
2. Hart of the Cranborne Chase
3. Dramatic North Cornwall Coast walking holiday
4. South Cornwall Coast: Falmouth to Plymouth
5. Jurassic Coastal Path and Ridgeway
6. The Mendip Way
7. West Mendip Explorer: Somerset Heights to Somerset Levels

Walking Profile

The walking days on this independent holiday average about 17km. The walking varies with some easy sections, whilst others sections have some steeper ascents and descents. For the most part your walking trail follows local footpaths, though there will be sections that follow national trails, such as the Wessex Ridgeway.

Day 1: Arrival

Welcome, and night at Dorchester. Explore the town of ‘Casterbridge’. Visit a Roman town house or Maiden Castle

Day 2: Dorchester, Max Gate & Stinsford

A route through Dorchester (Casterbridge) takes you to Max Gate (Hardy’s last home) and from there across the Frome Valley following in Tess’s footsteps (Tess of the d’Urbervilles). You will see Thomas Hardy’s first school and where the Hardy family are buried. You will follow in his Mellstock characters' footsteps (Under the Greenwood Tree), before crossing the water meadows back to Dorchester. 20km, +60m

Day 3: Hardy's Cottage & Far From the Madding Crowd

Today you will visit Puddletown (Weatherbury) and the other settings that inspired the novel Far From the Madding Crowd before crossing Puddletown Forest (Egdon Heath of Return of the Native) to visit Hardy’s birthplace and explore more of Dorchester. 17km, +135m

Day 4: Puddletown/Moreton to Bere Regis

Option 1: Visit Athelhampton House and gardens, a 15th century manor house, where Hardy was a frequent visitor. Walk via the villages of Briantspuddle and Throop to Bere Regis (the Kingsbere of Tess of the d’Urbervilles). Option to climb Woodbury Hill for views and home of the Greenhill Fair (Far from the Madding Crowd) 11+km, +110+m
Option 2: From Moreton walk via the burial place of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) (a valued friend of Hardy’s) and St Nicholas’ Church, known for its 13 windows, engraved by the poet and artist Sir Laurence Whistler, to Clouds Hill, T.E. Lawrence’s residence. 15+km, +140+m

Day 5: Bere Regis - Milton Abbas

Your walking trail takes you via Tolpuddle, famous as the home of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and then onto Dewlish in the valley of the Devil’s Brook and to the picturesque Milton Abbas with its 36 identical thatched cottages and abbey church. 17km, +340m

Day 6: Milton Abbas - Lower Ansty

Today’s walk sees you climb onto the Wessex Ridgeway with wonderful views across the Blackmore Vale (Tess’s ‘Vale of Little Dairies’) and onto Bulbarrow Hill and Rawlsbury Hill Fort before descending to Hilton and Bingham’s Melcombe, with its 16th century manor house. 15km, +260m

Day 7: Lower Ansty - Cerne Abbas

Your route takes you westwards onto the Wessex Ridgeway and then along a ridge in Tess’s footsteps as she makes her way to Beaminster. The views open up again of the Vale before descending through a valley via Minterne House with its Himalayan gardens to Cerne Abbas (Hardy’s Abbot’s Cernel) with its famous chalk carved giant. 18km, +370m

Day 8: Cerne Abbas - Evershot

Today you will traverse the rolling downland to Sydling St Nicholas, used in the 1967 film Far from the Madding Crowd as well as being Hardy’s Sidlinch (The Grave by the Handpost). Your route ends at Evershot (Hardy’s Evershead in Tess of the d’Urbervilles). 20km, +340m

Day 9: Around Evershot

Your last day’s walk takes you via more of Dorset’s small isolated communities including one of England’s smallest churches to Melbury Osmond (King’s Hintock) and back by Melbury Park. You are walking through the setting for Hardy’s The Woodlanders. 11km, +260m

Day 10: Departure

Departure after breakfast, transfer to Dorchester