Where is Hardy's Carriford?

Question

In Desperate Remedies, Thomas Hardy writes of a village named Carriford. Being close to Kingston Maurward I assumed it to be Stinsford, but Hardy refers to this place as Mellstock. Did Hardy make up this location?

Answer 1

Hermann Lea suggests that Hardy’s “Carriford” is an amalgamation of features taken from villages in the Dorchester area, notably Puddletown and West Stafford:

Carriford Village, Carriford Road Station, the Three Tranters Inn, and the Rectory, must all be regarded as imaginary creations, although certain features show them as suggested by portions of West Stafford, Puddletown, etc. The church we may perhaps regard as drawn more or less from the church at Puddletown, or that at Stafford; but this latter was thoroughly restored in 1897 and a chancel added. Over the porch is the date 1640, referring probably to the time at which it was rebuilt. The whole village has seen considerable alteration; many of these changes produced marked effects on the residents—a fact which may be exemplified by a quotation from the lips of an old bailiff who once lived in Stafford. He is reported to have said: ‘When Reggie’s gone and Johnnie’s gone and George is gone—good-bye Stafford.” Reggie referred to Canon Reginald Smith, Johnnie to the squire, and George to himself. A reason, however, for returning to Puddletown as the probable original is that, a few years before the date of the story, a row of thatched cottages opposite the church was burnt down precisely in the manner described.†

_{Hermann Lea (1969). Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, page 238. London: Macmillan.}

_{† In chapter 10 of Desperate Remedies.}

Hardy indicates in chapter 5 of Desperate Remedies that Carriford village is “along the turnpike road for a distance of about a mile” from Carriford Road station, which more closely resembles the situation of West Stafford, which lies close to the South West Main Line, though I do not believe it has ever had a station or even a halt. Black’s 1872 guide to Dorsetshire indicates that the line passes the village without stopping:

At 133 miles from London we pass, right, WEST STAFFORD (population, 229), close to the line, and left, WEST KINGTON, 1 mile (population, 270), quiet, old-world places, which possess little interest for the tourist, and seem half a century behind the more bustling districts of Railway-England.

_{Anon. (1872). Black’s Guide to Dorsetshire, 6th edition, page 60. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles.}