Life of Thomas Hardy

Page 3


Four Views of Max Gate



Max Gate

    John Gould (1996)

"Max Gate, Front":

Hardy designed and built this redbrick villa just south of Dorchester and moved in with Emma in 1885, while he was writing the Mayor of Casterbridge. He lived here for 43 years, until his death in 1928. Michael Millgate writes in Thomas Hardy: A Biography, "It is customary to condemn Max Gate as being ugly and uncomfortable.... It is, indeed, hard to defend on any architectural principles the turrets of Max Gate or some of its odder decorative features, except in so far as they can be said to embody distant and even playful allusions to [various] architectual styles...." (259)

"Max Gate, Entrance":

Millgate goes on to note the building's strengths: "The south-facing window of the living room is low, so that those inside can look out; the corresponding window of the dining room is high, to prevent those outside from looking in; both are large in order to catch as much of the sunshine as possible. Although Max Gate became a dark house as a consequence of the unchecked growth of the surrounding trees, Hardy originally designed it to be -- what it has now again become -- a house full of light." (260)

Front Door

John Gould (1996)      





Motorcycle

    John Gould (1996)

"T.E. Lawrence's Motorcycle at Max Gate":

Here, parked before the front room of Max Gate is a Brough motorcycle built specifically for T.E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia," the author of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In The Later Years of Thomas Hardy Florence Hardy writes that in November 1927 "his friend, T.E. Lawrence, called to say good-bye, before starting for India. Hardy was much affected by this parting, as T.E. Lawrence was one of his most valued friends. He went into the little porch and stood at the front door to see the departure of Lawrence on his motor-bicycle." (Chapter XIX)

This photograph was taken when several members of the T.E. Lawrence Society joined the Thomas Hardy Society for tea at Max Gate in 1996.



     from "The Going"

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
     Where I could not follow
     With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!

     Never to bid good-bye!
     Or lip me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
     Unmoved, unknowing
     That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.

 Below: "Max Gate, Rear":

This is the rear of Max Gate. The open window to the right of the chimney was the room in which Emma Hardy died, an event which released a flood of poetic activity in her husband in 1912-13.

Max Gate Rear

John Gould (1996)   

To view a larger version of a photograph, click on it. (File sizes: 46K, 53K)


Prev. Page

Index



Last Update: 4/18/99