Thomas Hardy's Wessex Thomas Hardy's Wessex The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in "The Mayor of Casterbridge". In an 1895 preface to the novel "Far From the Madding Crowd" he described
Wessex Basin Kimmeridge oilfield is an offshore field that was first discovered in the 1950s is the largest in the area and is still in production to this day. Wytch Farm is the major onshore field that entered production during the 1970s. This basin stems from three major source rocks known as the Blue Lias formation with Liassic clays, the Oxford Clay formation, and the Kimmeridge clay formation. Wessex Basin The Wessex Basin is a petroliferous geological area located along the southern coast of England and stretches into the English Channel. The on land area the basin covers comes close to approximately