Thomas Hardy's Egdon Heath: The Main Rainbarrow (Views)

The previous year I'd managed to walk through Puddletown Forest on the way to Puddletown (of 'Far from the Madding Crowd' significance) without picking up any scent of Hardy's main Egdon Heath features, but this year, I somehow found my way to the main Rainbarrow (pre-historic burial mound) pictured above from Hardy's 'The Return of the Native'.

This year, I set out for Hardy's Wessex much better prepared than last year through having read Margaret Marande's 'The Hardy Way' 4-5 times and J.B. Bullen's 'Thomas Hardy: The World of His Novels' (below) twice in the intervening 12 months:

Through having read chapter 2 of Bullen's book, 'The Return of the Native: Man's Place in Nature', I was now aware that I had to go down the side of Hardy's childhood home at Higher Bockhampton pictured below, which according to Bullen (page 50) is the model for "Blooms-End Cottage, the home of Mrs Yeobright and her niece Thomasin, and the birthplace of Clym Yeobright", and then "take the sandy bridle path that leads across the open heath from behind the Hardys' cottage and walk up to the spot where the trees begin" continuing a short while until the path separates  into several separate tracks, where it was important to "turn to the right" (Bullen page 62).

Through doing this, I enjoyed walking through canopies of fern:

Experiencing something of the isolation:

And magical beauty of Hardy's Egdon Heath:

But only picked up a definite scent that I was on the right track when I turned back after walking some distance, and saw a general direction post for the Rainbarrows:

But during two failed attempts (one at sundown, the other the next morning), I still couldn't find the place and had started walking back towards the Hardy birthplace cottage ('Blooms-End') badly disappointed, when suddenly my luck changed.  I asked a local, late middle-aged man out walking his dog if he knew where the Rainbarrows were, and it soon became clear he was an authority on Hardy (he'd moved to the area to be near the Hardy sites), and, after a short walk, he very kindly led me over a low fence through "dense and prickly gorse up to a Bronze Age tumulus  . . .  Rainbarrow or Blackbarrow" (Bullen page 63):

Before reaching Blackbarrow, the kind stranger had also pointed out two less distinguished Rainbarrows that I would have also never noticed had it not been for his help.

From on top of the main Rainbarrow, the man pointed out (in the pictures above and below) that the building on the mid-right was Hardy's model for Damon Wildeve's Quiet Woman inn:
 

From the same position, he showed me how as a child, Hardy had looked out towards Dorchester in the distance:

Just before reaching the main Rainbarrow, the man had pointed in an opposite direction towards two soil clearings on top of a hill which he thought may've been the spot that Hardy had in mind for Mistover Knap, the home of Eustacia Vye:

Finally, the man spoke about how for years, he had speculated on the route that Gertrude Lodge may've taken on a visit to Egdon Heath in Hardy's deeply dark (macabre) short story, 'The Withered Arm', from 'Wessex Tales'.

Thus, I am indebted to the kind stranger who led me to see several key Egdon Heath landmarks from 'The Return of the Native', which, if otherwise, I would've missed once again.