Casterbridge

In 1979 or so, on a day of respite from insurance meetings at Lloyd's , I took the early morning British Rail train from London, and traveled along the south coast of England to the home of Thomas Hardy, Dorchester, the Casterbridge of his novels, watching the school children travel one stop to the next, workers, tradesmen and women, business travelers, until I reached the Dorchester station in Dorset county.  

I wandered into town, found the Hardy museum and bought a map - the key to the locations which Hardy translated into the stage upon which his beloved stories took place - all real, still there - preserved for time and the occasional English major wandering away from London on a whim.   Then a few steps down the street was the hotel, The Kings Arms, just as it had been 100+ years before.....

http://www.kingsarmshoteldorchester.com/

“The building before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was the chief hotel in Casterbridge—namely, the King's Arms. A spacious bow-window projected into the street over the main portico, and from the open sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight of stone steps to the road-waggon office opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered there.”

Excerpt From:

Hardy, Thomas. “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” iBooks. 

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