Evershot is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southwest England, situated approximately 7 miles (11 km) south of Yeovil in Somerset.

[2] It is hard to trace the history of the village before the Norman conquest, but it is believed Evershot began as a boar pen approximately 1,100 years ago.

The oldest remains to be found in Evershot are three standing stones named the Three Dumb Sisters, now a bench.

[5] In 1628 Christopher Stickland founded Stickland's School "...for reading, writing and grammar... for the instruction and breeding of men children ... a schoolmaster there for ever to train up, instruct and teach the same child in good learning, true religion and the fear of God.

Local timber supplies provided raw materials for these industries, such as oak bark for tanning.

Products such as tanned hides, bowls, ladles and cheese vats were sent for sale as far away as Bristol, and subsidiary trades evolved to support the village's population, which reached 600 in 1851.

Not a single person was killed during the 'Great Fire of Evershot,' and a considerable amount was raised to help the homeless (£70 in two days, the equivalent of over £3000 today).

Evershot village is sited on greensand[12] approximately 175 metres (574 ft) above sea-level, among chalk hills of the Dorset Downs.

The parish church of St Osmund is built on the site of an earlier chapel, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin,[17] dating back to the time of Richard the Lionheart.

Tess Cottage in the village is named after that novel's eponymous heroine, who stayed in a fictional version of it when visiting 'Evershead'.

[11] Hardy was also an architect and in 1893 he designed an extension for what is now the Summer Lodge Country House Hotel in the centre of the village.

Hardy's mother, Jemima Hand, was born and married in the neighbouring village of Melbury Osmond.