Notes

1. Earlier editions, in Chapter 9, describe Weatherbury Farm as “of the Jacobean stage of Classic Renaissance..” but by the 1912 Wessex Edition, in which Hardy aimed to link his imaginary Wessex more closely to the reality of Dorset and surrounding counties, that changed to “the early stage of Classic Renaissance...” (subsequent editions use either wording). Neither house is Jacobean on the strict interpretation of James 1st's reign (1603-25), since both have sections from the late 1500's and mid-1600's (source: Hill, 2018) but not in between, though they could fit a looser interpretation, and both clearly do fit the amended 1912 description.

2. A “pilaster” is a rectangular column and fluting refers to the vertical grooves within the column.  This feature is clearly visible today at the two southern corners of the West Wing of Athelhampton. It is also visible in contemporary pictures of Athlehampton such as the 1857 stone-print on display in the house and Hardy's own 1859 drawing show these fluted pilasters prominently.

3. Athelhampton's West Wing roof fits both the description used in the early editions: the “pair of chimneys .. linked by an arch”, and the changed description introduced in the 1912 edition, of “panelled and columnar” chimneys (panelled: many chimneys all together in a brick box; columnar: a single large chimney rising up as a lone cylinder).  Waterson House does not have a columnar chimney, so it is not consistent with the 1912 edition. Some of its chimneys are grouped into a box that has a kind of arch-shape at the end, though not a complete bridge, so it could be argued that this is consistent with the earlier editions.

4. Both houses have courses of wonderful stone tiles forming the lower part of their roofs (with more conventional earthenware tiles in the upper courses).

5. Both houses have coped gables with finials (the decoration at the apex of the gable)

6. The “old hall” is the setting for Chapter 10, where Bathsheba announces the dismissal of the bailiff, and then pays out wages to all of her employees.  The Great Hall of 1485 at Athelhampton matches this closely, with a raised dias at one end where Bathsheba would have sat.  There is no comparable room at Waterson, though a much smaller room could have served the same function.

7. Hardy places Weatherbury farm just west of Weatherbury village (with overwhelming evidence that this is based on real-life Puddletown), the exact distance varying slightly between editions. Waterson lies about a mile north-west of this location, Athlehampton about a mile east.  So both clearly fit the poetical description of being “a witch's ride of a mile or more” that Hardy uses in his introduction to the later Wessex edition of 1912.

8. Both houses were ancient manors that were in more humble use as farms by the mid-nineteenth century, just as Weatherbury farm is described in Chapter 9.

9. Hardy's father worked at Athelhampton when he was in his late teens, and Hardy visited in 1859, making a drawing of the house (with its about to be demolished Gatehouse) which is now in the Dorset Museum in Dorchester.  By 1872, two years before writing Far from the Madding Crowd, he knew it well enough to incorporate architectural details from it a book (see note 10). For Waterson, Bullen, 2013, page 21, argues that because Hardy visited his parents in a nearby village, he would have known about Waterson, but no explicit evidence is offered.

10. Parts of Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes, serialised from late 1872 and published as a book the following year, are set in the fictional Endelstow House. Kay-Robinson, 1984, page 213 states that the "principal original" is Lanhydrock House in Fowey valley south of Bodmin (Cornwall), but that Athelhampton displays all the "missing features" not found in that Cornish house, notably mullioned dormers, roof gables with grotesque finials, the polyagonal bay, and the old gatehouse in the right style. 

11.  Far from the Madding Crowd first appeared as a 12-part serial in the monthly Cornhill Magazine in 1874, and was then published as a book. Each month 4 or 5 chapters appeared, accompanied by one full page engraved picture (also used in early editions of the book) and by a smaller, simpler drawing indented into the first page of the text, never used in the book versions. In almost all cases the illustrations clearly relate to the events of the accompanying chapters. They were by Helen Peterson.  Hardy, in a letter (presumably to the publisher around the start of the serialisation) offers to send the illustrator pictures of clothes such as smocks and of the malt house (source: Notes within Penguin edition of Far From the Madding Crowd, 2010, edited by Rosemarie Morgan and Shannon Russell).  The September issue contains chapters 39 to 42, and the indented picture shows part of a house, with the single figure of a woman in black to the left. The house is very distinctive and clearly shows a central feature on the East facade of Waterson House, though the ground floor window in the original (source: Pevsner's Buildings of England, Dorset) is changed in the illustration to a doorway. None of the distinctive architectural features described by Hardy in chapter 9 are visible in the drawing or this part of the original. Some researchers cite this drawing as proof that Waterson House is the inspiration for Weatherbury Farm.
    Comments:
    (a) if this drawing is intended to show the Farm, it seems strange that it does not appear alongside chapter 9 (where the Farm is first fully introduced and described in detail), and that it contains no architectural detail consistent with the text;
    (b) it also seems strange that the Farm should be illustrated by part of the east facade that in the original did not have a doorway and did not face either the road or the rear, given Hardy's emphasis (chapter 9) on how most activity had switched from the road-facing door to the rear (for both Waterson and Athelhampton, the road side is south with the rear facing north);
    (c) in one scene in the September issue (chapter 41) Bathsheba does walk near the Farm, but it seems an unlikely moment to pick out in a picture since it has no special drama, she is simply going about her daily routines in charge of the farm. Moreover, it seems unlikely that as a recently-married bride, not yet facing tragedy, she would be dressed all in black.
    (d) another possibility is that the drawing is intended to relate to Fanny's desperate walk into Casterbridge (chapters 39 and 40), part of which (her shelter by the haystack) forms the full-page engraving in this issue. In the text, she passes near to a different manor whose clock is heard striking (though not as close as shown in the picture), and as a penniless single woman in the final stages of pregnancy thrown out by her employer and desperate for the harsh refuge of the workhouse, she might well have been dressed all in black;
    (e)  Hardy's letter (cited above) suggests that he provided drawings that were used as inspiration by Peterson, and Bullen (cited above), page 21, sees this as evidence that he “probably” provided a sketch on which the September issue picture is based. However, it is notable that the only building Hardy mentions in that letter is the malthouse.  He may have sent more sketches later, though as September approached his time for providing sketches would be limited by preparations for his marriage that month – and it seems odd to add such a key building as an afterthought.

12.  Hermann Lea's (see Lea 1906 and 1913) linking of Waterson with Weatherbury Farm is important more because he knew Hardy than because of the hard evidence that he gives, which is limited. In Lea 1906 (p53), he mentions only its Jacobean dating, while in Lea 1913 (p34) he adds also the moss, the location (albeit moved), and the fluted pilasters. All of these points apply also to Athelhampton, and it is not clear why he mentions fluted pilasters, since they are not shown in his photo of Waterson, nor are they visible in modern pictures. Moreover, his wording leaves open the possibility that Waterson is not the only model. He states (Lea 1913, p34): “... Weatherbury Farm. The model which served our author may be found in Waterson House ...” (italics added).  The word “may” can be interpreted in different ways, noting that the introduction (Lea 1913, p xxi) says: “..the houses.. which are to claim our attention are plainly not each depicted from one real model – for some are undoubtedly composite structures.”

13.  Bullen, 2013, page 44, discusses Weatherbury church and suggests that while it is largely modelled on Puddletown church, the gargoyles, which play an important role and appear in the title of chapter 46, may have been inspired from elsewhere, perhaps the church of Sydling St Nicholas.