The governments advice for people to get on their bikes and look for work is not a new sentiment. Even during the Victorian period people moved freely around the country following the work, such was the story of one northern family. In the 1860’s Enoch and Mary Ann Birkin had been living in their local…
Tag: weymouth
1891; Wyke Regis church receives its new bells
There is a sound you don’t hear very often these days, the ringing of church bells. I loved to hear them. At one time their merry peel would call villagers to worship on Sundays, ring out joyfully at wedding ceremonies, or the solemn death knell rung to mourn a person passing. In the Victorian era…
1873; The battle for Greenhill gardens;2013.
This is a very hot topic today in the local news…the local council seem to be stripping off all our best assets, and one that they are talking about selling off to a private investor are the renown Greenhill gardens. Not surprisingly this has a great many of the local residents up in arms. These…
1859; William Cooke’s Great National Circus Equestrian & Zoological Establishment Arrives in Weymouth.
One of my childhood memories was visiting the annual circus that came to town. I know nowadays that using performing animals is not politically correct, rightly so, but as a child in the 50’s people never considered that darker side of circus life. Excitement would bubble up in my chest as we were walking down…
July 1862; Brutal Murder in Sutton Poyntz, Weymouth.
Tonight being All Hallows Eve, with goblins, witches and ghouls flitting the streets, terrorising one and all on this dark eve, I thought tonight might be one for a tragic tale. It all came about on a summers day in July of 1862. Down in the village of Sutton (Sutton Poyntz) lived a normal working…
1824; Weymouth, the Great Storm
This being the morning before zero hour…I thought that this might well be a good time to write about the Great Storm of 1824 that hit the country. Those living on the South coast were worst hit. This is a tale of a storm that was so severe and so destructive that it has gone…
1892; Wyke Working Men’s Club.
A lot of us probably remember going to a working Mens Club of an evening, either with family or friends, or if you weren’t a member, then signing in as a guest to attend a party or wedding reception. In my case it was the under 18’s disco’s at the Weymouth workies. The Weymouth one…
1868; Weymouth, The errant bridegroom.
One Sunday early in September a bride sat nervously waiting at St Mary’s church for her husband to be to appear. Now this wasn’t a young couple by any stretch of the imagination! The bride to be was Elizabeth Meaden, she was 37 years of age, a Weymouth lass, her father, Richard was a Shoe…
1872; Chesil Royal Adelaide shipwreck; part 2. Armageddon.
This is the second part of the tale of the sinking of the Royal Adelaide on Chesil beach that happened on the 25th November 1872. Well, in fact, it’s actually about what happened after…the dreadful scenes that hit the national papers and shook a lot of people. Despite there being many shipwrecks around the coast over…
1877; Weymouths shipping trade
Weymouth has had a long history of trading with the Channel islands, and even further afield. As a small child I can recall walking along the raised platform on the harbourside with my Mum firmly holding my hand, huge creature like cranes towered above me, they’d lumber along the rails set in the concrete from…
VICTORIAN TALES FROM WEYMOUTH AND PORTLAND 