A Casterbridge Chronicle

Hardy and the Romans in Casterbridge

Our much-loved county town in the heart of Wessex is celebrating its Roman past on a grand scale this Spring with a special “Gladiators of Britain Exhibition” hosted by Dorset Museum, with Roman tours and talks running until 11th May. A whole weekend dedicated to the Roman experience is also planned for the Dorchester Roman Festival from 12th to 13th April.

Shortly after invading Britain in AD43, the Romans set up camp on a site overlooking Maiden Castle and Poundbury Hillfort and named the settlement Durnovaria. Throughout his life, Hardy was much involved with the town’s Roman heritage, perhaps naming Casterbridge from the Latin word Castra, for military camp. With its many bridges, the River Frome, marked the town’s northern boundary and fed the ingenious Roman Aqueduct, supplying the public baths and fountains.

Apart from one small section, the stone in the old Roman walls surrounding the town was purloined long ago, the banks and ditches replaced with the tree-lined promenades where Henchard, Farfrae and the townsfolk of Casterbridge had so many emotional experiences. Now a scheduled monument, the walks have been an important attribute of the town for over 300 years, ensuring it remains “clean-cut and distinct, like a chessboard on a green tablecloth”.

A year before Hardy was born, The Revd Henry Moule had organised work for local labourers to lower Fordington High Street to make it easier to get to church. The excavation unearthed a Roman cemetery, with over 50 skeletons and many ancient artefacts. A few years later, William Barnes was instrumental in stopping proposals for the coming railway to cut through Maumbury Rings and Poundbury Hillfort. In 1845, he joined forces with Revd Moule and Canon Charles Bingham to create the Dorset County Museum and Library to protect these sites and other antiquities.

These men would become Thomas Hardy’s mentors, teachers and friends. One can only imagine the conversations they would have had and how these inspirational men fuelled his imagination and enthusiasm for the rich history of the area.

In “The Roman Road”, Hardy refers to early memories of walking with his mother along “that ancient thoroughfare” that still exists and “runs straight and bare across the heath” close to his birthplace at Higher Bockhampton.

Hardy had his own personal experience of uncovering “relics of antiquity” at Max Gate. He unearthed three Romano-British skeletons with grave goods when digging the foundations and later work in the garden revealed Flagstones, one of the earliest archaeological sites in Dorchester, along with his beloved Druid Stone.

“The Ring”, where Henchard and Susan had their tryst, is Maumbury Rings, originally a Neolithic henge, but modified by the Romans to become an amphitheatre. “It was to Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome and was nearly of the same magnitude.”

Thomas Hardy penned: “…persons sitting with a book, or dozing in the arena, had, on lifting their eyes, beheld the slopes lined with a gazing legion …and heard the roar of their excited voices …for the reception of the animals and athletes who took part in the games. The sloping pathways by which spectators had ascended to their seats were pathways yet.”

Aged 16, Hardy witnessed the hanging of Martha Brown, the last woman to be publicly hanged in Dorset, which left a lasting impression. She is considered the inspiration for Tess. When digging her grave, a striking geometric mosaic was uncovered, which is now on display at Dorset Museum on the stairway to the library.

More Roman mosaics have been found in Dorchester than any other Roman town in Britain. These have been ascribed to a possible Durnovarian School of Mosaicists due to the consistent quality and style.

Just three months before he died, Hardy attended a meeting at Dorset Museum to discuss the conservation of the outstanding mosaic pavement recovered from Fordington. He bequeathed money for the upkeep of the mosaics in the museum’s Victorian Hall under the proviso they must always be walked upon.

On becoming an Honorary Freeman of Dorchester, Hardy said, “...the freedom of the Borough of Dorchester did seem to me at first something that I had possessed a long while... for when I consider the liberties I have taken with its ancient walls, streets, and precincts through the medium of the printing press, I feel that I have treated its external features with the hand of freedom indeed.”

Even after Hardy’s death, major Roman finds continue to be unearthed. In 1937, a freestanding Roman town house, considered to be the finest example in the country, was discovered close to where Hardy once lived. Forty years later, a stone bath-house was found with rooms for meetings and banqueting. The baths had several suites of hot, cold and tepid rooms, saunas and a large exercise yard. In 2000, remains of several Roman dwellings were found with mosaics, metalworkers’ workshops, agricultural buildings and stone ovens. Several large hoards of coins have also been found.

Hardy’s words still ring true: "Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome. It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years." (Mayor of Casterbridge, Chapter 11)

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2025/2026 THS Dates for your diary

From 05/04/2025 until 01/08/2026
Starts 11:00 until 18:00

Professor Roger Ebbatson Public Lecture

On 07/05/2025
Starts 15:00 until 18:30

Launch Event: 10 Lovers, 50 Poems

On 09/05/2025
Starts 17:30 until 19:30

Paula Byrne Lecture: Hardy Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses

On 30/05/2025
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