Living in a traditional seaside town as I do, I have grown up with, always loved, and miss terribly, the good old fairy lights that used to be displayed around the promenade, someone had rather poetically described them as a ‘necklace of lights,’ and that is just what they were, colourful jewels that once adorned…
Tag: weymouth
The Victorian Backwater…fowling pieces, ospreys, auks and otters.
The Backwater, or Radipole Lake played a large part of my childhood. I spent a lot of my childhood playing in and around here, I fished for eels from the riverside with nothing but a stick, string and bent pin for a hook,(not very successfully I hasten to add,) I watched the swans build their nests…
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…
Sidney Groves Memorial Hall; 1900-1987.
One of the beautiful old buildings that Weymouth lost during a period of modernisation was what was locally known as the Sidney Hall, this intricately styled building sat in pride of place along the harbourside where Asda car park now stands. There is a tragic family history that laid behind the building of this hall. The…
Weymouth’s St John’s Terrace Gardens.
I know…it’s just outside the Victorian era, but close enough I thought. St John’s gardens are situated at the end of the long terrace of houses that run along the start of the main Dorchester Road, known as St John’s Terrace, past St John’s church which stands proud at the end of the sea front,…
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.
Fun and games in Weymouth town, one long sip and we all fall down! ; 1883
Much like today, the Victorians had their fare share of petty criminals or well know characters around town, those that must just have made the local bobby shake their heads when they come across them yet again. We might well think that bad behaviour and drunkenness in the streets is a new phenomenon, but believe…
Beating the Bounds; Weymouth Corporation defying fate 1840
Beating the Bounds is an age old custom steeped in history, it can be traced right back to Anglo Saxon times, and is similar in method of the Roman custom of Terminalia. It was a time when people would walk the exact same route around the boundary of their parish, usually during Rogation week, (second…
Weymouth 1857; A heinous crime solved after 50 years.
I’m a great believer in karma, or what goes around, comes around, and that ultimately things will always work themselves out. Such was the case of a heinous murder that took place in Weymouth during the late Georgian period. This was an age when Weymouth was an up and coming, lively, gay resort, thanks to visiting Royalty and…
VICTORIAN TALES FROM WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND 