We’ll start with a touch of Christmastide shenanigans. A well respected farmer and businessman, Thomas Hole, was stood in the dock garbed only in a sheet and rug, much to the amusement of the court’s public attendees, in stark contrast his hands and face were blackened. Thomas was accused of being drunk and disorderly at the Crown hotel.
Category: Portland tales
Tales from Portland, not including the quarries.
When Andromeda and the Naval Fleet went Walkabouts from Weymouth. August 1899.
via When Andromeda and the Naval Fleet went Walkabouts from Weymouth. August 1899.
Love is in the Air…Weymouth & Portland’s Victorian Valentines
Well, as Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, I eagerly await to see what glittering jewels and delicious delights my beloved will present to me early that morn…(don’t even go there!) It might surprise you to know that celebrating St Valentine’s Day is nothing new, it has been observed for centuries, apparently made popular by Geoffrey Chaucer…
Victorian Castletown, Portland…Matelots, Mariners and Mishaps.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit, as much as I love the Isle of Portland, in all honesty I don’t know a great deal about it’s history, for that I defer to local historian and accomplished author, Stuart Morris. (image © West Dorset District Council Channel Coast Observatory) What I do enjoy is reading…
The Great Escape from Portland Prison 1868;
William though had an even stranger tale to tell, proceeding to enlighten the eager scribe of his past history, a ‘romantic’ tale about his daring escape from the dreaded Portland prison, boasting he had been the only man to escape. its grey forbidding walls.
The Portland Shooting 1898.
Right throughout the whole of time certain laws of the human universe remained constant. One of those being that no amount of wealth, social standing and prosperity could ever guarantee happiness. So it was for one Weymouth hard working family. William and Martha Lumley owned and ran an established, well respected Weymouth business. They were the proud owners…
Misdemeanours and misfits in the Victorian courts; 1863.
I just love to browse the old newspapers and see what our ancestors were up to. The papers columns are filled with intriguing snippets of their daily lives, the usual hatch, match and dispatches, arrivals and departures, accidents and fights, and the misfortunes of those whose day to day activities managed to fall foul of…
The sea takes… and the sea gives back
With the steady stream of violent storms that has hit the South coast over the past couple on months it has been fascinating to see how the immense power of the ebb and flow of the extreme tides and currents affect the shores. The last storm to hit the South Coast, rather fetchingly named the…
The Armada and Chesil beach; December 1876.
Storms are nothing new to us on the South coast, we have lived with them since time immemorial, though this winter’s battering is proving to be some what of a prolonged event! World famous Chesil beach runs from the cove at Chiswell, Portland to West Bay. Facing that immense heritage pebble bank is the locally…
1867; Danger Lurks in Portland Quarries.
The quarries on Portland are world renown. They are of a strange type of brutal beauty, the glare from the white stone is blinding in the bright sunshine, the heat reflects mercilessly from the calcified remains that makes up the huge slabs that tumble and totter precariously all around. Ultimately, their beauty belies the ever present…
VICTORIAN TALES FROM WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND 