‘There are some heights in Wessex, shaped as if by a kindly hand…’ a quote from Victorian author Thomas Hardy, who set all of his novels in an imaginary region in South West England that he called Wessex.
Wessex is a wonderful part of the world – off the beaten track and far from the madding crowds (as Hardy himself would say). It’s a place we love to hike, and is much loved by our guests too.
But what and where exactly is Wessex?
Originally, Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the southwest of the UK, roughly covering the modern-day counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Hampshire. But it ceased to exist in 1066 and the term largely fell into obscurity.
Until Hardy appeared on the scene in the late 1800s, that is. His novels were (and still are) hugely popular, so the term started to be used again and remains popular up to the present day. The countryside of Wessex plays an important role in Hardy’s novels and poems, and he was considered a master at painting landscapes with words as this extract from Tess of the d’Urbervilles shows:
‘Here in the valley the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle-distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine… Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.’
Our walks in the region (some of which take you through the wonderful Blackmoor Vale) aim to do something similar, capturing the utterly rural feel of Wessex – ancient, idyllic, tranquil and historic. A place where King Arthur still walks the land and mythical chalk giants dominate the landscape, where megaliths loom as inscrutable witnesses to over 5,000 years of human history. There’s a charm and character that, we believe, make this the perfect place to walk and explore, to step back in time and forget the modern world for a while.
If you’d like to experience this ancient rural landscape and immerse yourself in the life of old England, then our Wessex Ancient Kingdom tour could be the perfect fit for you. If you’d like to know more, simply send us a message.
