Tree associated with Thomas Hardy has finally fallen down

Authors throughout the ages have had less-than-glamorous jobs before (or during) their writing careers.

Thomas Hardy, author of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd, is certainly among them.

In the 1860s, he was working for an architectural firm that was hired to exhume human remains from a London church's graveyard so that a railway line could come through.

And, unfortunately for Hardy, his boss put him on that particular job.

The end result yielded a ring of tombstones around one ash tree, whose roots grew over and around the stones for over a century.

It became known as the Hardy Tree because of its association with the author and drew visitors to St. Pancras Old Church as a result ... but the New York Times reports that those days might be over.

That's because the Hardy Tree, suffering from a fungal infection since 2014, finally fell over sometime over the weekend.

For pictures of the Hardy Tree's demise and memories of it, head to the NY Times.

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