‘The Shadow on the Stone’ Hardy and Archaeology by Mark Damon Chutter

‘The Shadow on the Stone’ Hardy and Archaeology by Mark Damon Chutter

Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome.

Join Mark Damon Chutter, the Chairman and Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society, for this special talk as part of our Festival of Archaeology programme.

With the Neolithic Henge under Hardy’s Max Gate home being recently listed as a scheduled monument, it is worth remembering that Hardy was an enthusiast for archaeology, particularly Roman history. In Fordington he was involved in the lifting of the Lott and Walne mosaic and its move to the Dorset Museum & Art Gallery just before his death. Furthermore, he sets his fictionalised 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge in Roman terms, featuring the henge and amphitheatre Maumbury Rings (The Ring).

Chutter will take you on a journey to consider the importance Hardy placed on archaeology within Dorchester (Casterbridge)and Fordington (Durnover) and will show how the significance of the past seeps into Hardy’s fiction and poetry.

Supported by and in partnership with the Thomas Hardy Society.
Co-ordinated by the Council for British Archaeology, the Festival offers hundreds of events nationwide, organised by museums, heritage organisations, national and country parks, universities, local societies, and community archaeologists.
The Festival of Archaeology will take place between 19 July to the 3 August 2025.

Mark Damon Chutter is the Chairman and Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society. He has published papers in the Thomas Hardy Journal and for the Times Educational Supplement (TES). He has been teaching for over 30 years as a Drama and English specialist and was shortlisted for the TES’s ‘Most Innovative Teacher of the Year’ and ‘Teacher of the Year’ awards.

Mark’s interest and scholarship in Hardy started when he was a teenager as his Grandmother lived in Fordington Old Vicarage – the former residence of the Moule family .