AS the harvest is gathered in and the days grow shorter, Victorian cooking demonstrations at Thomas Hardy’s Cottage near Dorchester will start to explore life’s little luxuries: mulled cider, Dorset apple cake and Portland dough cake.

Every Friday from 11am to 2pm, visitors can step back in time at the cottage to see how the traditional recipes were made, try some cake or mulled apple juice and share Hardy tales.

Writing so many well loved novels and poems was particularly hungry work for Thomas Hardy, whose diet is being re-created at his childhood home.

Taking a tour of the cottage, the simple thatched cottage today is surrounded by a wild bed of beautiful flowers where visitors can easily conjure up images of a young Hardy deep in thought with his first works – though the cottage would have looked very different then.

The garden would have been lined with vegetable patches of parsnips, peas and potatoes while a pig roamed around.

Today the cottage, run by the National Trust, has volunteers bursting with enthusiasm for Hardy’s life in every room as they dress up in Victorian clothes and use traditional cooking methods.

The kitchen can lead to turning back the hands of time as the volunteers conjure up demonstrations and a hardy feast.

Hetty Lindley, from Dorchester, is one of the dedicated volunteers for the National Trust property, and spent the winter making her Victorian costume entirely by hand for the cooking events.

She volunteers once a week with her father at the cottage.

While traditionally toasting bread over the fire, Hetty said: “It’s absolutely unique and a proper job.

“The cottage is so homely and you feel like you could live here.

“I love teaching youngsters living history and bringing it to life, to smell and sample things.

“That’s the joy.”

Hardy’s family were builders and stonemasons, meaning they ate the basic staples of the Victorian diet – bread and cheese – as well as less familiar dishes, like kettle broth and furmity.

His mother, Jemima, was a skilled cook and used the kitchen to slowly smoke hams and bacon in the chimneys. At the end of his life, Hardy’s final wish was to smell bacon cooked over the fire the way his mother used to do.

n Victorian cooking demonstrations run every Friday 11am to 2pm at Hardy’s Cottage near Dorchester. On October 29 from 11pm to 3pm, join the National Trust team for Apple Day at Hardy’s Cottage for a day of orchards, apples and seasonal fun too.