Cool - if we're going to be pedantic (as I am frequently), 1) Wessex is now only fictional, it has no legal status as a county, borough or region. 2) Thomas Hardy is only partly buried in Dorset (his heart, to be precise, in Stinsford churchyard), the rest of him is in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, London.

But you have the character down right. My adopted grandfather* was his paperboy and said he was the meanest man God ever blew breath into. All the stories of his parsimonies are true, even down to building an outside toilet in the house he designed (Max Gate) because it was cheaper and extinguishing fires when he left the room to save coal.

LTS

* adopted grandfather - I ran out of grandfathers so I adopted Bill Davies, a true Gentleman of the Old School.