Part 14

Name. Tonnage. Master. Men. _The Gallion_ 100 Richard Miller 50 _The Catherine_ 60 30 _The Heath Hen_ 60 30 _The Golden Lion_ 120 60 _The Sutton_ 70 Hugh Preston 40 _The Expedition_ 70 50

Notwithstanding that their largest vessel was only of 120 tons, the Weymouth contingent captured two of the galleons and brought them as prizes into the harbour. The only other vessels sent by the county on this occasion were two from Lyme Regis—_The Revenge_, of 60 tons, and _The Jacob_, of 90 tons—and four from Poole. In the Guildhall there is a memorial of the event in the shape of a massive iron-bound chest (_see illustration_), believed to have been brought from one of the captured galleons; and many other relics are scattered over the county, as at Bingham’s Melcombe, where there is a magnificent oval dining-table, of massive form and marvellous workmanship, with the crest of a Spanish grandee in the centre, the whole mounted on a sea-chest in lieu of legs. Many Spanish coins have been washed ashore on the Chesil Bank, and it is possible that others of the ill-fated ships sank in the vicinity of Portland, or that the dons threw their money and valuables overboard rather than let them fall into the hands of their captors.

Little is recorded during the next fifty years, save the building of a wooden bridge of seventeen arches to unite the two towns, in 1594; and thirteen years later the town was visited by one of those great plagues which periodically swept over mediæval England.

The outbreak of the Civil War in 1642 found the county fairly evenly divided in support of the rival parties, and Corfe Castle became the headquarters of the Royalist, and Bingham’s Melcombe that of the Parliamentary forces. In 1643 the Earl of Carnarvon seized and held for the King, Weymouth, Melcombe, and Portland, and left them in charge of Prince Maurice, whose troops are said to have pillaged and ravaged the district. The following year the Earl of Essex defeated the Royalist troops, and took the town for the Parliament, when he was assisted by a fleet under the Lord High Admiral, the Earl of Warwick. The towns proved a rich prize for the captors, as, in addition to much ammunition, etc., no less than sixty ships fell into their hands. The troubles of the inhabitants, however, were far from over, as in 1645 Sir Lewis Dyves received orders from the King to make an attempt to re-capture Weymouth, which, with the help of Sir W. Hastings, the Governor of Portland, he succeeded in doing, and drove the defenders across the harbour into Melcombe. On June 15th, 1644, the town surrendered to the Parliamentary Commander, Sir William Balfour, the final overthrow being largely due to the Earl of Warwick, who appeared off the harbour with a large fleet, originally mobilised for the relief of Lyme Regis. The spoils of war which fell into the hands of the captors included 100 pieces of ordnance, 2,000 muskets, 150 cases of pistols, 200 barrels of powder, and 1,000 swords, in addition to sixty ships of various tonnage lying in the harbour. The losses sustained by the combined towns in the Civil War amounted to £20,000, as a certificate from the Justices, in the Parliamentary Roll, testifies. The town to-day shows no trace of the fierce bombardments it underwent, but a house in Maiden Street has a “bogus” memento in the shape of a cannon ball foolishly inserted in the masonry some decades since.

In 1649 the inhabitants petitioned Parliament for a grant of £3,000, to enable them to enlarge Melcombe Church, build a new bridge, and free the harbour from rubbish.

The “Old Castle,” otherwise Sandsfoot Castle, situated about half a mile from Weymouth proper, is to-day nothing but a mere shell of the former stronghold. It was built by Henry VIII., about 1539, and was part of his scheme for the fortification of various parts of the coast, particularly Portsmouth, Portland, and Weymouth, against a possible invasion on the part of Papal Europe on his throwing off the Roman yoke in 1540. Leland calls it “a right goodlie and warlyke castel, havyng one open barbicane.” The existing masonry shows its form to have been a parallelogram, and from its commanding position it, no doubt, was a fortress of considerable strength. It is difficult to identify, from its crumbling remains, the various portions of the castle, but that portion to the north, from its vaulted character, appears to have been the Governor’s apartment; while fronting south was the gun platform, as the embrasure shows. This platform would also flank its east and west sides, which were also pierced for big guns, while almost level with the ground was the barbican, with two tiers of loop-holes for small arms.

On a tombstone at Whitchurch Canonicorum is the following inscription:—

Here lyeth Iohn Wadham of Catherstone, Esquyer, who deceased A.D. 1584, who was dewring his life time Captayne of the Queene’s Ma^{ties} castell called Sandesfote, besides Waymouth in the countye of Dorset.

Among its other Governors were George Bamfield, 1631; Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1643; Colonel Ashburnham and Colonel William Sydenham, 1644; and Humphrey Weld, of Lulworth, 1685. It is a matter for regret that this old building should have been so neglected, as each year sees large masses of its masonry falling over the cliff. As a writer as long ago as 1829 said:

Its remains even now attract many an inquisitive enquiry as to why it has been so neglected, as where the neighing of hostile steeds, and the busy clang of arms once sounded to the battle’s din, the humble grass now grows, its walls are the dormitories of the birds of the air, and its rooms afford pasturage to the cattle; a change certainly more gratifying to us as a nation; but still its bold towering appearance, as seen ascending the hill, or viewing it from the hill, reminds us of some bygone tale.

In addition to the castle, the town was further protected by several forts. Probably none of these were in the nature of permanent fortifications, except the Blockhouse, which stood near the east end of Blockhouse Lane. The New Fort, or Jetty Fort, was erected at the entrance of the harbour, at the end of the old pier, and was dismantled in 1661, although in Hutchins’ time three guns were placed in position on the same site. Then there was Dock Fort, under the hill, west of the Jetty Pier, St. Nicholas’ Chapel converted into a fort by the Parliamentary troops, and a small fort called the Nothe Fort.

Few events seem to have occurred during the Protectorate that need recording beyond the great naval victory gained by Blake over Van Tromp, off Portland; and, as some compensation for the damage done to their property during the reign of his father, Charles II. granted the town in 1660 an annuity of £100 a year for ten years from the Customs’ dues. It was during this reign that tradesmen coined small money or tokens for the convenience of those wishing to buy small quantities of goods, as but little small money was coined by authority. In 1594 the Mayor of Bristol was granted permission to coin a token, and the benefit to the community proved so great that the custom spread to other towns. Weymouth coined many of these tokens (_see illustration_), which were made of copper, brass, or lead, and decorated as fancy dictated. Every person and tradesman in the town was obliged to take them, and they undoubtedly answered the purpose of providing the people with small money. In 1672, however, Charles II. ordered to be coined a sufficient number of half-pence and farthings for the exigencies of the State, and these _numorum famuli_ were prohibited as being an infringement of the King’s prerogative.

The grant of armorial bearings to Weymouth and Melcombe Regis bears the date of May 1st, 1592. The seals of the town were eight in number, a description of which is recorded in Ellis’s _History of Weymouth_.

When the ill-starred Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis in 1685, no Weymouthians seem to have flocked to his standard. Upon the failure of the rebellion the participants of the neighbourhood were quickly disposed of by Judge Jeffreys, who opened his Bloody Assize at Dorchester, and ordered them to be hanged at Greenhill, and their bodies to be dismembered and exhibited throughout the county as a warning to rebels.

So we come down to the close of the seventeenth century with little to record save devastating fires, plagues, and storms. A general period of poverty and depression seems then to have overtaken the two towns. The causes leading to this change, which had begun to show itself in the reign of Elizabeth, were many and various, and may be briefly ascribed to the concrete result of the vicious rule of the Stuarts, the removal of the wool trade to Poole, the loss of the Newfoundland trade, and the injury received during the Civil War. Ellis tells us that, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, “scarcely any idea can be formed of the general devastation and depression that everywhere prevailed. Houses were of little value ... the population had dwindled to a mere nothing ... old tenements fell down ... the inhabitants consisted chiefly of smugglers and fishermen.”

Before we turn to the brighter days which set in towards the middle of the reign of George III., a short account must be given of the larger memorials of the town—_e.g._, the old bridge, the priory, and the parish church, although it must be confessed that of important antiquities dating before the Georgian era the town has little to show beyond a few remnants of Jacobean houses, part of one solitary pillar of the chapel, and possibly a few old doorways; and in later and minor memorials the town is little better off. There is, in the Guildhall, the fine iron-bound chest before mentioned, and another, said to be of similar origin, bequeathed by the late Sir Richard Howard. There is also an ancient chair with a cardinal’s hat carved on the back, and the old stocks and whipping-post; but for the most part nothing has survived save the truly Georgian, such as round windows, picturesque doorways, and part of the old Gloucester Lodge, now an hotel—an altogether disappointing record in comparison with the long and varied history of the place.

Of the old chapel,[52] the one remaining stone is preserved in the wall of a school. The chapel was a chapel of ease to Wyke Regis, the mother-church of Weymouth, and was dedicated to St. Nicholas. It stood on the summit of a hill overlooking the old town of Weymouth, and its site is commemorated in the name “Chapelhaye,” by which the district is known. There are several documents extant relating to this chapel, and among extracts from the _Liceirce_ is the following:—

None shall fail at the setting forth of the procession of Corpus Christi day, on pain of forfeiting one pound of wax, and each brother shall pay six pennies to the procession, and pay yearly.

This relates to the fraternity or guild in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, which was founded by a patent granted in 20 Henry VIII. to Adam Moleyns, Dean of Sarum, and certain parishioners of Wyke Regis, and known as “The Fraternity or Guild of St. George in Weymouth.”

Before the building of a bridge across the harbour the means of direct communication between the two towns was, so Leland says in 1530, by means of a boat, drawn over by a rope affixed to two posts, erected on either side of the harbour, a contrivance which was in use at Portland Ferry as late as 1839. In 1594 this primitive method of crossing gave way on the erection of the wooden bridge before referred to, erected at the expense of several wealthy merchants of London, who appear to have had trading interests here. This, in its turn, was so seriously injured during the Civil Wars, that it fell to pieces, and was rebuilt in 12 Anne by Thomas Hardy, Knt., William Harvey, James Littleton, and Reginald Marriott, the towns’ Parliamentary representatives, and it continued in use until 1741, when a bridge sixty yards long, with a draw-bridge in the centre, took its place. The celebrated Bubb Dodington, the first and only Lord Melcombe, contributed largely to its cost. In 1770 another bridge was erected some seventy yards westward, thus increasing the length of the harbour; but as the inhabitants were forced to make a considerable detour to reach it, they petitioned against the proposed alteration, but to no purpose. In 1820 it was determined to erect the first bridge of stone,[53] which is still in use, and only calls for mention here from the fact that on pulling down some adjacent houses an urn filled with silver coins of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. was found; and it is said that some of the inhabitants had a fine haul of “treasure trove” on this occasion. More interesting, perhaps, was the discovery of a gilt brass crucifix, four inches long; and on the wall of one of the demolished houses was painted the following verse:—

God saue our Queene Elizabethe, God send hir happie dayes; God graunt her grace to Persevir in his most holie wayes. A. Dom. 1577.

The old priory, or, as it was more commonly called, the “Friary,” stood in Maiden Street. It was a house of the Dominican Friars, dedicated in the name of St. Winifred, although Speed gives Dominic as the dedicatory saint. Leland writes of it as “a fayre house of Freres in the est part of the town.” The ancient chair now in the Guildhall came from this priory, and it was said to possess miraculous powers of healing the sick, and otherwise blessing the devout who were privileged to sit upon it. The priory shared the fate of the other monastic foundations at the Dissolution.

Of churches which can be rightly considered as memorials, Weymouth has no example, as the oldest is that of St. Mary, the parish church. The foundation-stone was laid on October 4th, 1815; this church was erected partly on the site of a former church. It is a large, simple, and unpretentious building, of which some hard things have been said and written, but it is at least well built and free from sham, although of its architecture the less said the better. It is, however, somewhat redeemed by an excellently designed cupola containing one bell. Inside, an altar-piece by Sir James Thornhill, a native of the town, whose daughter married his pupil Hogarth, claims attention; as also does the following curious inscription, in which the artist, by contracting the word “worthiest,” has conveyed the very opposite estimate of the deceased’s character to that intended:—

UNDERTH LIES YE BODY OF CHRISR. BROOKS ESQ. OF JAMAICA WHO DEPARD. THIS LIFE 4 SEPR. 1769 AGED 38 YEARS, ONE OF YE WORST. OF MEN FRIEND TO YE DISTRESD. TRULY AFFECTD. & KIND HUSBAND TENDER PART. & A SINCR. FRIEND.

An old chalice belonging to the former church which stood on this site was in the possession of Mr. Ellis. It was made of pewter, weighed (without the lid, which was missing) 4½ lbs., and held four pints. On the front was engraved:

HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD, ZACH. XIV., VER. 20. JOHN STARR, CHURCHWARDEN, 1633.

About the middle of the eighteenth century a gentleman of Bath, Ralph Allen (the original of Fielding’s “Squire Allworthy”), having been recommended sea-bathing for his health, found the shore of Melcombe so suitable for his purpose that he spoke of it to the Duke of Gloucester. His Royal Highness came, sampled the salt water, and built Gloucester Lodge, to which house he shortly afterwards invited the King, George III., who spent eleven weeks here, with his Queen and family, in the summer of 1789. The result of this and subsequent visits was that His Majesty purchased the house and converted it into a royal residence. A great stimulus was thus given to the town, which entered upon a period of prosperity; for here George III. held court, and heard the news of some of Nelson’s and Wellington’s victories. Very gay, indeed, was the life of those days, with music, feasting, and dancing, which took place in what is now called “the Old Rooms” (formerly an inn), across the harbour. It was at Gloucester Lodge that His Majesty received his ministers, and from whence he and Queen Charlotte used to walk to the little theatre in Augusta Place to witness the performances of Mrs. Siddons and her contemporaries. Queen Charlotte’s second keeper of robes was Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay), the chronicler of George III., and the author of _Evelina_ and _Camilla_, for which last she received 3,000 guineas, with which sum she built Camilla Cottage, at Mickleham, near Dorking.

At Weymouth, in 1785, was born Thomas Love Peacock, the author of _The Monks of St. Mark_, and other works. He was Under-Secretary to Sir Home Popham, and afterwards Chief Examiner and Clerk to the East India Company, from which post he retired in 1856 with a pension of £1,333 per annum. He was a friend of Shelley, whom he had met on a walking tour in Wales in 1812. He died in 1866, aged eighty years.

In the long list of eminent men who have represented the towns in Parliament we find the names of Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam), Sir Christopher Wren, and the celebrated political adventurer, Bubb Dodington.

One of the most interesting studies for the topographer lies in tracing the origin of the names of the streets of a town; and the names of the principal streets of Weymouth are distinctly traceable to their origin. St. Nicholas’ Street derives its name from the patron-saint of maritime towns; Francis Street comes probably from Franchise; Boot Lane (formerly Buckler’s), from an inn called “The Boot”; Helen Lane, from Queen Eleanor, who held the manor of Melcombe; Maiden Street, from Queen Elizabeth, who united the boroughs; and St. Edmund’s Street, St. Thomas’ Street, and St. Mary’s Street, possibly from chapels dedicated in honour of these saints.

THE ISLE OF PORTLAND

BY MRS. KING WARRY

To the stranger of antiquarian or geological tastes Portland must ever be of interest; but the casual visitor—seeing it for the first time in the glare of the noonday sun, amidst eddying clouds of stone-dust tossed hither and thither by blustering winds, or when the over-charged atmosphere settles like a misty cap on the Verne Heights—is apt, if he have formed expectations, to be woefully disappointed. The fact is that nowhere, perhaps, is the Spirit of Place more coy and difficult of access than in modern Portland, having retreated before barracks, fortifications, and prison, before traction-engines and signs of commercial prosperity. But, properly wooed, it can still be won, and once found, how well it repays the trouble of seeking! A mere cycle run or drive through the island is emphatically _not_ the way to see Portland Isle, especially the Portland of the past. The visitor needs to walk, saunter, and lounge idly for at least a few days, and then, if he have a well-stored mind and fail to experience the subtle, indefinable sensation called “charm,” he must be strangely lacking in that spiritual perception which alone makes man feel at one with the universe and with God.

The convict establishment and Government quarries have displaced much which lent an interest to the island; the barracks and harbour works have displaced still more—but fortunately we retain a few records which, scanty though they be, reveal a something of the past. Gone is the barrow of that king whose very name is lost; and this supposed last resting-place of a mighty chieftain, swept through long centuries by pure sea-laden breezes, is now desecrated by quarrying operations: the barrow of Celtic Bran is but an empty name, though Mound Owl still remains in part, a silent witness of Saxon prowess and possibly of the fierceness of the contest maintained so long in Royal Dorset.

Gone, also, is the sometime well-preserved earthwork on the Verne Hill, formerly attributed to Roman or Dane, and now believed to have been older than either. Only a slight vestige of the double fosse-way remains; though an old man, but lately passed away, has told us that in the days of his youth he could stand on that part of the West Cliff known as Priory and distinctly trace it throughout its length as it tended downwards towards the harbour, once the scene alike of peaceful commercial intercourse or sanguinary combats. Looking across Portland Mere from the hill-top, one can imagine it all—from the probable peaceful Phœnician trader and Roman trireme to the Viking rovers and much-dreaded “long ships,” even as can be pictured in some degree the character of the opposite coast before the altered tidal action inside Portland breakwater had caused beautiful Smallmouth Sands to vanish and Sandsfoot Castle to stand perilously near the crumbling cliff-edge in ruinous state; whilst the opposite Portland Castle still remains, casting much of its original reflection in the Mere waters, a standing witness to the uneasy conscience of Henry VIII. respecting French designs.

Page upon page of unwritten history lay open to the observant eye as recently as some sixty years or so ago, all traces of which are rapidly vanishing before modern requirements. Barrows, earthworks, and so-called Druidical circles were then so strongly in evidence (especially one well-preserved circle near where the prison Governor’s house now stands) as to make one think that religious observances of one kind or another must have been strongly marked during those early days. Indeed, the Bill itself—cleaving the clear waters within sight of the foam-tossed Race and equally dangerous Shambles, its point accentuated by the curious outstanding Pulpit Rock—is often termed “Beel” by the old islanders, and is by some supposed to derive its name from Baal.

The former bold outline of the West Cliff is in part lost, owing to land-slides during the past century; and lost, likewise (owing to tidal action), is the old pathway round the Weirs underneath, towards the lighthouses, which formed a pleasant ramble seventy odd years ago. But the view from the cliff-tops, both east and west, must be much the same as in immediately-preceding centuries, and it is only those who have watched the flickering lights and shadows and roseate glow over-spreading the white coast-line in early day right away to St. Ealdhelm’s, or faced the sunset on the West Cliff, who can appreciate one of the chief charms of Portland, viz., the varying character of the coast-line, both far and near—that coast which surely no Englishman can survey without emotion, abounding as it does in memories of the deeds which helped to make our England.

The Bay itself is glorious to look down upon, with its pebbly ridge dividing it from that other water more like lake than sea; whilst straight away, cloud-cleaving in the haze, is Blackdown, capped by Hardy’s Monument, over which hover greyish-purple shadows, changing into those tones and half-tones which are so charming in Dorset “distances.”