Egdon Heath is a composite of several stretches of heathland, most prominently Puddletown Heath, which backs right to the Hardy Birthplace. Heath is rolling countryside, characterized by highly acidic soil. Bracken fern and gorse, or furze, with its yellow flowers and sharp spines, are acid-lovers, and thus two floral markers of heathland. Puddletown Heath, which was open land during Hardy's time, has become heavily forested.

"Heathcroppers":

"Heathcroppers" are wild ponies that once lived on the heaths. Diggory Venn used a pair of them to pull his van. "They were small, hardy animals, of a breed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as 'heath-croppers' here." (Book I, Chapter II) A few remain today on Exmoor and the New Forest in Hampshire.

This weir, along the Frome River not far from Lower Bockhampton, is the scene of the drowning of Damon Wildeve and Eustacia Vye. "Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in diameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised and lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of the pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the bank; but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as to undermine the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole." (Book V, Chapter XI)