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…
Category: Weymouth tales
Stories from around Weymouth
Ringing in the New Year Victorian Style; Weymouth and Portland.
Well…that’s yet another year year done and dusted. My old Mum always used to say the older you get, the faster they go, and true to her oh so wise (but often infuriating) words, the older I’m getting, the faster they’re bloody well going. In fact they’ve now almost hit warp speed! New Year’s Eve is…
A Happier Weymouth Christmas of 1862…
Well…this is my second attempt at writing a blog post this year about life in Victorian Weymouth in the build up to the Christmas period. My first attempt at writing one that gave the reader a warm fuzzy glow, the feel-good factor, full of Christmastide cheer, had somehow ended up instead laden with the doom and…
December 1888; Weymouth Drunks, Domestics and Deaths
Picture this, it’s the year 1888, it’s December, on the cusp of Christmas and the good folk of Weymouth are going about their everyday business as usual. For some though, it was not to be a good ending to their year. Pretty much like todays inhabitant’s of our seaside town, those of the Victorian era…
Hitting the Headlines; Weymouth 1869.
When you stroll through the streets of Weymouth, do you ever gaze up at the at the old windows and mansards of these historic buildings and wonder what silent spectres peer through their bubbled panes or pondered the scenes they may have witnessed during their long existence. The lives of our ancestors past, of their families, neighbours and…
Death Becomes Us…Weymouth Wills and Legacies.
It’s often strange where a line of research takes you. What starts out as a simple enquiry ends up uncovering parts of Weymouth’s history that I never knew about, their family lines and tales twisting and weaving through time and place and the story of Weymouth itself. I was rummaging through the National Probate Calendar…
Weymouth Maritime Mishaps and Mayhem of 1857
Being on the coast and both valuable ports for trade, Weymouth and Portland have had their fair share of shipping disasters. Take the year 1857 and a peek into local papers reveals a concoction of calamities for those working the local waters. Even nowadays crowds love to stop and watch Weymouth’s town bascule bridge be raised to let…
Executions of Crabchurch Conspirators Upon The Nothe Headland.
Follow this link to Mark Vine’s excellent blog that covers Weymouth’s vital involvement in the English Civil War. The Executions of the Crabchurch Conspirators Upon The Nothe Headland.. I can highly recommend this book if you have a love of Weymouth’s history.
Weymouth’s Tommy Atkins and Jolly Jacks.
Something that many of the younger generation might not realise but Weymouth has a long and fascinating history with the army and navy. Even during my own lifetime I can recall a certain ‘liveliness’ when hundreds of sailors would take their shore leave, hoards of men streaming along the esplanade heading for town, all eager to make the most of their…
The Victorian Weymouth College….ghosts and gowns
There are certain buildings in and around Weymouth which I have passed on so many occasions in my lifetime that they just become yet another invisible part of the scenery, you no longer really see them…not properly. One such grandiose building stood down towards the bottom end of Dorchester Road, an imposing building which towered tall behind its…
VICTORIAN TALES FROM WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND 