During my perusals of various sites and old local newspapers I often come across some intriguing stories. Such was the case a few weeks ago when I was mooching through the old Police Gazettes, a periodical which gives a fascinating and highly detailed insight into our Victorian ancestors lives and their mishaps or misdemeanours. Should…
Tag: victorian illustrations
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…
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…
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…
Cycling on the Weymouth Esplanade…nothing’s new under the sun!
Ever since the Georgian era the beautiful curve of Weymouth Esplanade was the place to be seen. This grand gravelled walk, defined on one side by the sea wall and the other by its reknown line of white Portland stone posts and chains was where people from all walks of life like to promenade of a…
Fishing for trouble, Weymouth quayside 1887.
Weymouth harbour early morning is a beautiful tranquil place, with only the local fishermen busy on board their vessels getting ready to set out to sea, but as the day picks up, so the harbourside begins to fill with boats of all shapes and sizes and people, some working and those out enjoying themselves. So…
Who’s a naughty boy then? Victorian prisoners, were they really all bad?.
The Prison Registers contain many intriguing stories within their yellowed pages, and the faded elegant script tells us of our ancestors past lives. They are just a tiny snapshot of their life’s story, but can reveal a great deal about the person or the family. On the very last day of the year 1872, James…
Old Weymouth’s High Street; Everyday Life in the 1850’s.
We stop first at no 10 High Street, here lives 45-year-old Charles Buck, a coal merchant.
Love and matrimony came late to Charles, at the ripe old age of 40 he finds himself waiting nervously at the alter of Holy Trinity church for his bride to be.
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…
VICTORIAN TALES FROM WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND 