YEOVIL NEWS: Could this be the saddest-looking historical blue plaque in the country?

FIXED to a boring wall and next to a dustbin, a bag of rubbish and a car park ticket machine in Yeovil – it is difficult to imagine that the blue plaque marks the spot of real literary historical interest.

Go to any town or city and you often see blue plaques on buildings to denote places of interest and historical locations.

Yeovil has got its fair share and the blue plaque (pictured above) is situated in the Peter Street car park in the town centre.

The plaque marks the former site of 7 Peter Street where novelist Thomas Hardy, who lived from 1840 to 1928, once lodged.

Hardy (pictured right) is famous for his novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and The Mayor of Casterbridge and it was while he was living in Yeovil in 1876 that he started to pen The Return of the Native.

The actual house referred to in the citation on the plaque was demolished some years ago to form a car park and the plaque is ignominiously fixed to a wall next to a ticket machine and dustbin.

The photograph was posted this week on social networking Facebook by Lucy Trimnell.

“It’s got to be the saddest blue plaque in the country?” she asked.

Yeovil Town Council put up blue plaques across the town centre at historical places of interest to commemorate the Millennium to allow residents and visitors the chance to learn more about the past.

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