Thomas Hardy visited St Juliot as an assistant architect on 7 March 1870. His job was to make a survey of St Juliot's Church, to prepare for its restoration. And it was ruined. Hardy met, and fell in love, with, Emma Gifford, the sister-in-law of the vicar. The vicar was subject to gout, and much older than Emma's sister Helen. In A Pair of Blue Eyes, an assistant architect, Stephen Smith, surveys West Endelstow church to prepare for its restoration. Stephen meets, and falls in love with, Elfride Swancourt, the daughter of the vicar. The fictional and actual vicars both suffered from gout.
This is St Juliot's church:
St Juliot's is not actually exposed to the sea, as West Endelstow is described in A Pair of Blue Eyes. Also, you have to come down the hill from the Old Rectory, not climb up as in the book. But then, of course the book is fiction.
Interior of St Juliot's:
St Juliot's contains memorials to both Hardy and Emma. Needless to say, Hardy designed both memorials. However he clearly didn't have the last word on his own, as he never dreamed he would end up buried in Westminster Abbey. Note that he is described as a poet first and then an author.
Some examples of St Juliot Poems (mostly from Satires of Circumstance, written after Emma's death):
