Thomas Hardy's Wessex photos up for auction

Hermann Lea's subjects were photographed in their natural surroundings

Photos depicting the people and places that inspired Thomas Hardy's novels are expected to fetch thousands of pounds at auction.

Many of the pictures going under the hammer at Forum Auctions on Thursday were conceived for the 1913 guidebook Thomas Hardy's Wessex.

Hardy and his photographer friend Hermann Lea travelled together to capture the images for the publication.

The auction house's managing director Rupert Powell called them "unique".

Grey's Bridge in Dorchester features in The Mayor of Casterbridge

Wessex was the writer's fictionalised version of the south of England, and the guidebook provided enthusiasts with information on the real life locations.

It meant readers could go on their own pilgrimages to sites around counties such as Dorset, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Hampshire.

Children at play were pictured candidly in Dorset

Mr Powell told the BBC: "While Lea was snapping away with his incredible homemade telescopic camera, Hardy would be pointing.

"He'd be saying 'That's where Clym Yeobright wooed somebody from The Return of the Native', or 'That's where Angel Clare was doing something in Tess of the D'Urbervilles'.

"It's just a lovely glimpse back into Dorset as it was 100 years ago."

Some of the pictures were mounted and included inscriptions by the photographer

The scenic collection, which was bought from Lea's widow in the 1960s, is expected to fetch between £10,000 and £15,000 at auction.

But it also included portraits taken by Lea of people in rural Dorset at the time, which are estimated to sell for between £8,000 and £12,000.

Mr Powell said these were the "type of characters that would have influenced Hardy when he was writing... the local people at work, at play, at leisure, without any posing".

Lea took pictures of the sort of people in rural Dorset who may have inspired Hardy

Also going under the hammer are portraits Lea took of Hardy himself, which have an estimate of between £3,000 and £4,000.

Hardy's works include Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Far From the Madding Crowd.

One of England's most acclaimed novelists and poets, he was born in Dorset and lived in the county for much of his life. He died in 1928, aged 87.

Lea took multiple photographs at each location, such as Kingston Maurward, and not all made it into the book

Follow BBC South on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].