Poole nowadays, though having a considerable trade in timber with the Baltic ports and in seaborne coal, has, on the whole, declined rather than advanced from its position as a port in its palmiest days. There are but few buildings remaining of any note, and even its chief church is an unpicturesque structure standing at the west end of the town a little north of the quay and somewhat at the back of the High Street. It is of no antiquity, although it probably stands upon the actual site of a much more ancient building. Poole is still, however, a busy seaport, and the High Street, which is of considerable length, generally wears an air of movement and enterprise, although the sea trade of the town has very much altered in character of late years. In former times it was of a much more general nature, and its ancient and prosperous trade with Newfoundland was its chief stand-by. Its shipbuilding, which was once a source of considerable prosperity, has of late years greatly declined, although some small yachts and boats are still built. The quays form one of the most interesting and busy portions of the town; and on them may be seen many types, in whose faces can still be traced some of the characteristics of the old sea dogs who fought during the latter half of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries so gallantly and stoutly against the French.
Within the net-work of narrow alleys running in and out amongst the more solid red-brick houses that flank the quay—remnants of the prosperity of merchants long since dead—picturesque bits of architecture are discoverable, with old-time doorways hidden away in grass-grown courtyards, and fragments of the ancient town walls beautiful with lichen and weather-stained by ages of storm and stress.
The modern town has grown up rather by extension of its borders than the substitution of new buildings for old, and the older warehouses and dwellings by the waterside dating back a century or so have not, as a general rule, been pulled down to be replaced by new ones. The extension and growth of the town is chiefly marked by the more modern houses which have been built along the roads leading to Parkstone and Bournemouth on the rising ground to the north-east of the town.
Poole, picturesque of approach by water though it be, is, after all, we think, seen to the greatest advantage when viewed from the encircling highlands from the south-east, south-west, east, and north-east. Then distance lends a softness to its more unlovely part, and the haze of smoke and vapour which generally hangs above the town and the distant glimpses of the lagoon-like harbour serve to make up a picture of delight and interest.
Westward from the harbour mouth over the lofty chalk downs, at the eastern foot of which the picturesque little village of Studland nestles, lies Swanage, in a sickle-shaped bay, where, at least according to tradition, a desperate naval engagement was fought between King Alfred and the Danes. The town of late years has developed from a quiet old-time resort into a semi-fashionable watering place, which to those who knew Swanage years ago possesses less attraction.
The old town was built with stone from the famous quarries on the heights above, in the western and sharper curve of the bay, where its single street still winds tortuously from the shore inland, flanked on either side by grey stone houses, whose stone slab roofs form congenial ground in which house leek, stone crop, and many coloured lichen flourish. The architecture of old Swanage was of such charming irregularity as to give the place almost a foreign look when approached from the water, or seen at a little distance. It is upon the heights to the south-west, and along the low-lying and gradually rising ground which skirts the Bay with its fine sandy beach, and ends beneath the shelter of the bold ridge of the Purbeck Hills, that the new town has been chiefly built.
Save when an east, southerly, or south-easterly gale is blowing, Swanage is quite an ideal spot for the yachtsman to spend a few days, while the ruined, grim, and ever interesting fortress of Corfe Castle; the beautiful “Golden Bowl” at Kimmerridge; and picturesque Wareham with its historic memories provide plenty of interest in the form of excursions for those who wish to indulge in shore-going pleasures.
To the west of Swanage, along a coast line of about 22 miles, which, iron-bound at first, passes through various stages of rock, chalk, and sand, with the Dorset highlands always looming in the background, lies Weymouth, much as Swanage does, in the curve of a bay very similar in configuration, though much greater in extent.
Of old Weymouth, the objective in the past of pirates and freebooters, there nowadays remains very little. The modern town, which has sprung up gradually, spread landward and northwards, and has, in the process, slowly though surely obliterated the more ancient of its features. From its wide esplanade, running almost half the length and round the whole of the most acute curve of the bay, is a prospect of rugged coast and breezy highlands, scarcely excelled in picturesqueness and charm by any other on the Dorset seaboard. Charmingly situated, and in summer washed by the sapphire sea, modern Weymouth has nowadays taken a prominent position as a yachting port, and as a summer resort for the better type of holiday-makers.
Weymouth, in its age and the historical interest which attaches to it, has a distinction possessed by comparatively few seaside resorts. Of its antiquity there can be no question. Records there are which indicate its probable existence as a port of trade for the ancient merchants of Tyre, even before the Roman invasion of Britain. Many relics of those far-off times in the shape of ornaments, pottery, Druidical, Roman, Saxon, and Danish remains are frequently found in the neighbourhood, and undoubtedly in Roman times Weymouth was connected by a vicinal way with the great military road which passed through Dorchester.