Archaeologists may have unearthed the remains of a woman whose execution had a lasting impact on the writer Thomas Hardy, inspiring the fate of one of his most beloved creations – Tess of the d’Urbervilles. 
 
 
 
 Excavators found the bones at Dorchester prison in Dorset, where a 16-year-old Hardy watched the public hanging of Martha Brown after she was convicted of murdering her violent husband. 
 
 Remains including a skull were uncovered at the prison – which closed in 2013 – ahead of the building of a housing development. The discovery has caused huge excitement among Hardy enthusiasts, who believe the bones may be those of Brown, whose hanging inspired Tess’s unpleasant end. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Thomas Hardy’s manuscript for Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Photograph: 12174/The British Library 
 
 They are calling for work to be carried out to confirm who the remains belong to, and for them to be given a proper burial before work to build 190 homes and commercial units begins on the site. 
 
 Nick Gilbey, a Dorset-based film-maker and Hardy fan, said: “I don’t think it would be too difficult to establish if any of the remains are those of a woman. If they are, they are almost certain to be the remains of Martha.” 
 
 He said a full examination of the prison site should take place. “I think more work needs to be done, and we need to make sure that whatever remains are found there are given a proper, decent burial. Martha is an important historical figure because of the Hardy connection.” 
 
 Hardy was among a crowd of up to 4,000 people who watched Brown’s hanging in August 1856. It was an event that had a huge impact on his life and work. Seventy years later, he wrote to a friend, Lady Hester Pinney, expressing his shame at being present, adding: “My only excuse being that I was but a youth, and had to be in the town at that time for other reasons.” 
 
 Still, he could not resist describing the hanging in vivid detail: “I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain, and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back.” 
 
 Tess of the d’Urbervilles was published in 1891. There are superficial similarities between Tess and Brown: both women were executed for murdering men who had wronged them in some way. In Tess’s case, she stabs Alec d’Urberville, the architect of her downfall. Brown was found guilty of killing her husband with an axe, though she always claimed she was innocent. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Martha Brown was executed at Dorchester prison in 1856, watched by a young Thomas Hardy. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock 
 
 In his novel, Hardy does not describe Tess’s death in detail. Instead, he tells how two onlookers watch the cornice of a tower as a tall staff is fixed to it. “A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag. �?Justice’ was done.” 
 
 In handwritten notes of her conversations with Hardy, Lady Pinney describes how he talked of Martha and Tess. “His sympathy for these unhappy women was wonderful,” she wrote. 
 
 Developer City & Country has made a planning application for the prison site. As part of the scheme, the company commissioned an archaeological survey. In their report, the archaeologists say the remains were found outside consecrated ground, adding: “It is known that executed prisoners convicted of murder were buried outside of consecrated ground from the 1830s and it cannot be ruled out that this may be associated with such execution. 
 
 “It is the intention that any human remains which may be disturbed by the proposal development will be adequately recorded and removed prior to disturbance, with the intention to rebury the remains following appropriate assessment and analysis.” 
 
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 Mike Nixon, the secretary of the Thomas Hardy Society, said more work should be done on the site before it was developed; “Hardy is well known for storing up experiences and using them decades later. When he wrote Tess, I’m sure he had in mind Martha Brown. We believe the remains should be respected, whoever they belong to, but it would be neat if they were shown to be those of Martha.” 
 
 A spokesperson for Cotswold Archaeology, which carried out the survey, said: “At this stage, it is not possible to determine whether the remains are male or female, as the remains have not been removed for recording or analysis.” ||||| Skeletal remains believed to be of an executed female author Thomas Hardy used as the real-life inspiration for his novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles are at the centre of a row between developers and archaeologists over whether or not to dig up her prison grave. 
 
 Martha Brown was hanged outside Dorchester jail, in Dorset, for the murder of her violent husband in 1856, a macabre event at which a 16-year-old Hardy was in the front row. 
 
 Nearly 40 years later, the experience was at the forefront of the famous writer's mind when he wrote the ending for his best known heroine Tess Durbeyfield in his 1892 book. 
 
 In it, Tess was a wronged woman who was hanged at Winchester jail for the murder of Alec D'Urbeville, her violent lover who raped her and prevented her from being with her true love. 
 
 "People are concerned the developers will go in to the rest of the burial grounds with a JCB and tear up the site and we will lose Martha's remains" 
 
 "People are concerned the developers will go in to the rest of the burial grounds with a JCB and tear up the site and we will lose Martha's remains" Nick Gilby 
 
 In a 2008 BBC adaptation, Tess was played by Gemma Arterton while her suitor, Angel Clare, was played by Eddie Redmayne. 
 
 Records show that eight convicts were executed and buried at Dorchester prison until 1878. The Victorian jail was closed in 2013 and sold by the government to developers, who are now in the process of building 190 new homes on the site. 
 
 Because it is a historic location, archaeologists had to be brought in before any redevelopment could begin and they made numerous exploratory trenches. 
 
 One them uncovered the old burial grounds for the prisoners, with at least one skull and other remains being dug up. 
 
 Out of the eight convicts, only one of them was female, so establishing which are the remains of 44-year-old Martha should be straight forward. 
 
 Historians and Hardy enthusiasts are now calling for a sensitive, full-scale dig of the burial ground to be carried out so that Martha's remains can be exhumed and reburied elsewhere. 
 
 Since the publication of Tess of the D'Urbevilles, arguably Hardy's most celebrated work, Martha has been regarded as a heroine. 
 
 Nick Gilby, a Dorset TV producer who has made a documentary about Martha, has studied the preliminary archaeological report issued to West Dorset District Council. 
 
 He said: "There are eight bodies buried at the prison and they have found one skull and some other remains. Tests should now be carried out to see if that skull or those remains are female because if they are then they are Martha's. 
 
 "There is an early 19th century plan of Dorchester prison available that shows where within the walls the designated burial site. It was on the eastern side of the prison and is 20 yards to the North Square gate which is where the executions took place and where Thomas Hardy watched Martha hang. 
 
 "That is the location where these remains have been found. People are concerned the developers will go in to the rest of the burial grounds with a JCB and tear up the site and we will lose Martha's remains. 
 
 "But a more fuller excavation needs to be done and tests carried out to find her so she can be given a more suitable burial. She is quite an important historical figure nowadays because of the Hardy connection." 
 
 "My interest is obviously mainly in Martha but I think all the bodies should be exhumed. Their descendants could still be around, they are people who have got names, not some long forgotten Roman soldier, they were living just 150 years or so ago." 
 
 Fifteen years ago, a letter Hardy wrote to his friend Lady Pinney in 1926, two years before his death, was discovered. In it he wrote about the execution of Martha Brown. 
 
 He wrote: "I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain. And how the light black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back." 
 
 In handwritten notes of conversations she had with Hardy, Lady Pinney described how she "sat over the open fire at his house hearing him talk of Martha and Tess, who had so much in common, just as if they were in the next room. His sympathy for these unhappy women was wonderful." 
 
 And in a later letter by Hardy's widow Florence to Lady Pinney related how the hanging 'gave a tinge of bitterness and gloom to his life's work'. 
 
 Mike Nixon, the secretary of the Hardy Society, said: "There is certainly an assumption that Martha's execution affected him so much that he used it for the ending of Tess. 
 
 "He did later record that he was very affected in a horrific way and clearly he retained that experience when he came to write one of his most famous books. 
 
 "Everyone was a little bit ghoulish in those days. He would have been very impressionable at that age and an event like that would certainly leave a lasting impression." 
 
 A West Dorset County Council spokesman said they will consult the county's senior archaeologist as to whether more excavation work needs to be carried out on the site. 
 
 A spokesman for developers City and Country said their preference would be to leave the remains undisturbed. 
 
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– Thomas Hardy fans, prepare to geek out. Archaeologists may have uncovered the remains of a woman whose execution is said to have inspired the death of the main character in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Back in 1856, a 16-year-old Hardy was among a crowd of 4,000 that gathered to watch Martha Brown's public hanging at Dorchester prison in Dorset, England. The prison has since been closed to make room for a housing development, and archaeologists conducting a routine survey because of the site's history turned up the still-unidentified remains, including a skull. Only eight convicts were executed and buried at the prison before 1878, reports the Telegraph. "I don't think it would be too difficult to establish if any of the remains are those of a woman," a Dorset-based filmmaker tells the Guardian. "If they are, they are almost certain to be the remains of Martha." Like Tess, Brown was executed for murdering a man who had wronged her: in Brown's case, her violent husband. "I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain, and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back," Hardy said of her execution some 70 years later. "Hardy is well-known for storing up experiences and using them decades later," says a rep for the Thomas Hardy Society. "When he wrote Tess, I'm sure he had in mind Martha Brown." The housing developer is resisting requests to allow a more thorough dig that might definitively answer the question about the remains, and the government's senior archaeologist in the county will make the final call on whether it's necessary. (Archaeologists recently found the site of an 1826 murder.)