Planning row over country manor house that inspired Thomas Hardy as council wants 120 houses built next door
Local authorities have a real impact on our cultural history. Last week we ran a story about concerns over the future of the John Clare archive in Northamptonshire, this week Thomas Hardy hoves into view….
Country manor house that inspired Thomas Hardy is at the centre of a planning row as the local council recommended 120 houses be built next door.
The development near Dorchester in Dorset would “ruin the environs” of Elizabethan Grade I listed Wolfeton House which the great novelist frequently visited, according to the Hardy Society.
It was owned for 400 years by the Trenchard family whose name provided the inspiration the main character in Hardy’s classic 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.
The writer also used the house in the short story The Lady Penelope, in which he described it as “an ivied manor-house, flanked by battlemented towers”.
Despite the of opposition against the housing estate planners at West Dorset District Council have recommended it be built. A committee meeting to decide the matter will be held in three weeks time.
Wolfeton House is currently owned by Captain Nigel Thimbleby, a retired army officer and relative of the Trenchards, and his wife Katharine.
Capt Thimbleby, 82, said: “The parish council had voted unanimously against this development and we all thought it was unlikely to proceed. It was only recently that we realised we were being taken for a ride.
“We have got three weeks to sharpen our pencils and do battle and oppose these plans with vigour.