Probably the highlight of our 1-2 hours in Sturminster Newton was visiting Sturminster Mill on the river Stour:
In 'The Hardy Way: A 19th-Century Pilgrimage', Margaret Marande (2015: 100) explains that near the end of his life, Hardy wrote a poem recalling a visit to Sturminster Mill with his second wife Florence during a visit to Sturminster Newton in 1916, and that in this poem ('The Second Visit'), the woman on the bridge in the middle stanza is Florence, while "his memories of Emma" (his first wife) "from over forty years before dominate the rest of the poem". Much prefer Hardy's novels to his poems, but do like the poems that Hardy devotes to Emma.
Below, my friend Dave is crossing over the bridge towards Sturminster Mill:
Below, I'm looking back at Sturminster Mill from a distance, hope it's still standing when I'm long gone:
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