THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE  www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THOMAS HARDY IN NEPCOTE

Copyright Valerie Martin 2007

Originally printed in Along the Furlong in March 2007

This is a poignant Victorian love story of passion and betrayal that I have collected together from surviving fragments concerning Thomas Hardy and the hamlet of Nepcote.

Thomas Hardy entered the world on 2nd June 1840 near Dorchester in an isolated cottage on the edge of open heathland at Higher Bockhampton.  He was the eldest of four children of a stonemason and jobbing builder. 

A well-known character to become part of Nepcote's past was George Tonken Nicholls.  He was born in Penryn, Cornwall in 1811 and later became a coastguard stationed at Southwick, Sussex and married a Findon girl, Jane Bright.

In 1841, their first-born was Eliza at Fishersgate near Shoreham-by-Sea.  Her sister, Mary Jane, arrived in 1846.  

Mr Nicholls next became a coastguard on the Dorset coast at Kimmeridge situated between Swanage and West Lulworth.  It was during these early years that the boy, Thomas Hardy, first formed a friendship with Eliza Bright Nicholls before he was sent to a school in Dorchester in 1849. 

Thomas took his first love, Eliza, on many countryside walks — one of these was to Clavell Tower on Hen Cliff above Kimmeridge Bay.   They can be imagined walking hand in hand along the lonely headland and looking down into the sea below.  The tower had been built in 1831, originally as a 3-storey summerhouse-cum-folly and perhaps it was still in use as such when Thomas and Eliza were there.   Later it became a coastguard lookout and then fell into disrepair and was used by Victorian smugglers.   It was used by P. D. James as a centrepiece for her thriller, The Black Tower, in which the hapless Victor Holroyd plummeted to his death on the treacherous rocks beneath.   The tower that was used by Thomas and Eliza is now the centre of a real cliffhanger and is only 6 ft. from the eroding cliff and seems certain of sliding the 100 ft. into the bay.

At the end of 2002, a gentleman named Roy Buckle sent me an e-mail with a snippet of scandal.   Skeletons always come out of the cupboard eventually.    It had come to his knowledge that Eliza had a child whilst in the West Country in Penzance and this boy was fostered and Eliza banished to London.   The boy's name was Pulson and he remained in foster care until he was 14 years old and later the young Pulson Nicholls refused to see anything of his mother.

From 1856 Hardy was articled to a Dorchester Architect, John Hicks, and he rose very early each day and from 5 a.m. until 8 a.m. studied Latin and Greek.

This is a rather stilted portrayal of the young Hardy, c. 1856.  

He was also writing verse and held somewhat controversial views on country life, which he wrote about.  Throughout this period he kept in contact with young Eliza.

George Nicholls' family moved when he took his last post as a coastguard at Portslade in Sussex.   Around 1856 a visit was made to Findon, maybe to see Jane's relations.  George Nicholls' health was failing and he was invalided out of the coastguard service and began to look around for a suitable occupation in his retirement.  Should the family return to Jane’s maternal home village?  This is where Findon now enters the story. 

One of Jane’s relations, John Bright, owned “The Running Horse” on the edge of Nepcote Green.  He was also the landlord of the cottages on the east side of Nepcote, together with the meadowland.  In 1861 George and Jane decided to move to the hamlet of Nepcote to “The Running Horse” where George described himself as “a beer shop keeper” for the next twenty years.

From all accounts the inn prospered.  The Sheep Fair was the highlight of the year on Nepcote Green and the pub would have enjoyed a roaring trade.  Farmers and shepherds gathered together and 12,000 or so sheep changed hands.  It is said that the riotous behaviour of some of the Sheep Fair’s customers may have caused the closure of the pub around the end of the century.

In 1862 Hardy made his way to London and worked for another architect, Arthur Bloomfield.  He read widely and studied paintings in the National Gallery and at this time became an agnostic.  Meanwhile, Eliza also just happened to be working in London in service as a lady’s maid at the home of a barrister residing near Westbourne Park Villas.

Periodic visits by both young people were made to “The Running Horse” when their work permitted.  Hardy, who was a poet as well as a novelist, wrote a group of verses known as the “He to She” poems, which are said to reflect his friendship with Eliza.

It is strange to think of Hardy walking the byways of Findon.  One particular sonnet is reputed to relate to Tolmare Dew-pond on the ridge overlooking Tolmare Farm on the A280 Long Furlong Road and their love is immortalised in this poem.   I would stress that there is no foundation to this theory, but it would be nice to think it is related to Findon......

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

This would have been a delightful spot in Victorian days, brimming with the rippling water and wildlife.  It is now hardly recognisable in its present state.  A shadow of its former self, the old dew-pond is now dried up and a tangled mess, surrounded by old lime-kilns hidden in the debris and undergrowth.

The happy young couple were virtually engaged to be married, and Hardy's early love poems deal with his experiences with Eliza.  Around this time she changed her job to nurse another member of her London employer’s family and after this person’s death in January 1865, returned once more to live in Nepcote with her parents.

Hardy visited Nepcote in 1866 and, as would have been in keeping with his architectural training, decided to sketch St. John the Baptist Church in his notebook.  I can imagine that Eliza went with him on this excursion over to the church.... 

The passionate liaison continued for another year...when suddenly Hardy's eyes roamed, and his attentions strayed, to none other than Eliza’s younger sister, Mary Jane.  How long had it been going on?  No one was letting on.  No doubt “The Running Horse” witnessed some emotional scenes back in those days with a rift between the two sisters.  This new intrigue was not long-lived — whether sisterly relations were resumed I do not know.

Hardy disappeared to Dorchester (it is said for health reasons) and was busily employed on church restoration for the next three years.  He did not visit Nepcote again as far as I can discover.  

George Nicholls was quite a character in Findon and I have discovered he built the first four cottages on the right going up School Hill out of The Square.  The reason for the project is not known, maybe it was purely for investment.  I have also heard that the Nicholls family owned a large retriever dog that enjoyed going off on its own and doing and spot of poaching.

Mary Jane died first at a young age on 20th August, 1877 at the age of 32 and the girls' mother died a year later. Eliza continued to live at “The Running Horse” with her widowed father.  In spite of being invalided out of the coastguard service he did not die until 20th May 1906 at the ripe old age of 95 years.

Hardy continued with his writings.    He even became an enthusiastic cyclist in later life and that is why I have included him wearing his cycling gear c.1890.  A cycle cost £20 then and Hardy was not a man to part with his money readily.  It took him a whole two weeks to decide to make his first purchase after coveting it through a shop window.  He was eventually so enthusiastic that he even had a “Bicycle Room” at his house (which was in fact the old kitchen). 

From 1892-4, Hardy suffered in his personal life from worsening relationships with his wife, Emma.  The trouble was exacerbated by his writing of “Jude the Obscure” in 1893.   I am just wondering if a link may be found here with a flint built house standing opposite "The Running Horse" in Nepcote.  This is named “Judens” and Hardy would have looked across the lane and seen it every time he visited Eliza.   The land to the west of Nepcote Green is also indicated as Judens Field on a map dated 1808.  Perhaps I am clutching at straws in endeavouring to make the connection!  The published content of "Jude the Obscure" caused such a rumpus that Hardy at that time resolved to give up writing because of the ensuing scandal!

When Hardy's wife died, Eliza paid him a visit at his home at " Max Gate" sometime in 1913.   She made it known that after all those years she was still keen to marry him!   Both were in their 70s.  Hardy gently advised her that he was sadly already spoken for. He married Florence Dugdale in February 1914.

Eliza, the girl crossed in love in Findon by her sister, died a spinster on 2nd September 1918 aged 77.  The "Spanish flu" epidemic had just commenced in Britain and it is said that the raging germ killed approximately twice as many as had died in the First World War.   I just wonder if she could have been one of Findon’s first influenza victims?   Her granite tomb is in the churchyard of St. John the Baptist on the right of the pathway to the church entrance.  

“The Running Horse” then became a private residence and was re-named “Nepcote House”.   Clive Dickinson who lived at Coachmans for many years (opposite Nepcote House) told me that the pub sign turned up some years later in an antique shop in Dorset (strange coincidence to be that county again) and has never come to light again.   Perhaps someone reading this, will know the answer.

Thomas Hardy died on 11th January 1928 in his 88th year in his native Dorset and his ashes were buried beside Charles Dickens in Westminster Abbey.   Eliza had long been forgotten but his heart was interred in the grave of his first wife, Emma, in Stinsford Churchyard in Wessex.

Continue if you would like to read about John Bright's Nepcote Encounter

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This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.