On the whole, I dislike visitors’ centres wherever they may be. I cannot see the point of telling people about the surrounding countryside when they can explore it for themselves, and often the building spoils what it is supposed to extol. The visitor centre at Higher Bockhampton is no exception. Thomas Hardy’s delightful cottage is set in beautiful woodland, close to the River Frome and should have been allowed to retain its peacefulness and atmosphere of the Dorset so loved by the writer. Now it seems that the area might be desecrated even fur-ther by the sale of alcohol until midnight, films and also live music. Why? What has that to do with literature? The towns are awash with enough alcohol to suit any raving dipsomaniac, and noise emanates from virtually every pub, department store and super-market.
If visitors are genuinely inter-ested in learning about Hardy’s life and work, it seems reason-able to assume they would prefer to do it quietly, with the mini-mum of fuss.
The National Trust should be ashamed of itself for considering these proposals at all. Let us be realistic – those of us who really love Hardy simply read his books.
Susan Gow Overcombe Weymouth
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