As the novel opens, Tess's father John Durbeyfield, living in the North Dorset village of Marlott (really Marnhull) discovers that his ancestral family, the d'Urbervilles, were buried in marble vaults in Kingsbere Church.
Chapter 2
"Durbeyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed luxuriously, was waving his hand above his head, and singing in a slow recitative-- "I've-got-a-gr't-family-vault-at-Kingsbere--and knighted-forefathers-in-lead-coffins-there!"
The church is a Mecca for Hardy followers who, upon visiting it, really do discover a vault for a great Dorset family called the Turbervilles.
Hardy called the North Dorset village in which Tess was born and brought up Marlott. Here we see a pub, "The Crown", with the church in the background. This pub was formerly known as "The Pure Drop Inn". At the other end of this very large village is another pub called "The Blackmore Vale Inn", which was known to Hardy as "Rollivers".
Chapter 4
"Not only did the distance to the The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the further part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation practically unavailable for dwellers at this end; but the far more serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent opinion that it was better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the housetop than with the other landlord in a wide house."
Chapter 13
"In the course of a few weeks Tess revived sufficiently to show herself so far as was necessary to get to church one Sunday morning. She liked to hear the chanting--such as it was--and the old Psalms, and to join in the Morning Hymn. That innate love of melody, which she had inherited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest music a power over her which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times."
However, the fictional vicar who later refused to bury Tess's dead baby in consecrated ground because it had not been baptised came in for the author's considerable criticism. Tess proclaimed that she would "never come to his church no more" (Chapter 14).
The village of Cranborne is situated in the south eastern corner of the Cranborne Chase, the hunting ground specially reserved for the kings. Hardy called it Chaseborough. Whilst working at Trantridge (see below) Tess and her co-workers made weekly visits to this town.
Chapter 10
"The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday night, when work was done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market-town two or three miles distant; and, returning in the small hours of the next morning, to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects of the curious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the once independent inns."
The very rural village of Pentridge, seen here on a dull day (with a tethered goat in the foreground) was christened "Trantridge" by Hardy. This was the location of the farm owned by the Mrs d'Urberville and her son Alec, for whom Tess worked for several months, and who subsequently raped her.
Chapter 5
"She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot a hill in the direction of the district known as The Chase, on the borders of which, as she had been informed, Mrs d'Urberville's seat, The Slopes, would be found. ... It was ... a country-house built for enjoyment pure and simple, with not an acre of troublesome land attached to it beyond what was required for residential purposes, and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner, and tended by a bailiff."
Woolbridge was the old name for the town of Wool, and the bridge near which this manor house is to be found, is situated to the north of the town. Hardy called the town Wellbridge, and it was in Wellbridge Manor that Tess lived with Angel Clare.
Chapter 34
"They drove by the level road along the valley to a distance of a few miles, and, reaching Wellbridge, turned away from the village to the left, and over the great Elizabethan bridge which gives the place half its name. Immediately behind it stood the house wherein they had engaged lodgings, whose exterior features are so well known to all travellers through the Froom Valley; once portion of a fine manorial residence, and the property and seat of a d'Urberville, but since its partial demolition a farmhouse. ..."
"But he found that the mouldy old habitation somewhat depressed his bride. When the carriage was gone they ascended the stairs to wash their hands, the charwoman showing the way. On the landing Tess stopped and started."
"What's the matter?" said he.
"Those horrid women!" she answered with a smile. "How they frightened me."
He looked up, and perceived two life-size portraits on panels built into the masonry. As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten. The long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large teeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point of ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards in his dreams.
