In the fashionable and pleasant watering-place of to-day, which has, indeed, sobered down from those stirring and somewhat uproarious times, it is difficult to trace much of the old town, but although it declined in favour somewhat in the early ’fifties and ’sixties of the last century, from the position of importance and popularity to which it had attained because of the patronage of King George and the Court, it has nowadays become one of the favourite resorts of West of England holiday folk, and is a yachting port of convenience and repute. And even amid the bustle of modern life it seems somehow or other to preserve in its atmosphere and comparative quietude of life many of those old-world characteristics which distinguish so many Dorset towns, whether they be set inland or on the coast. Weymouth possesses a good harbour and an excellent roadstead, and although it has declined of recent years as a trading port, from the position it held in ancient times, it remains popular with yachting folk by reason of its beautiful situation, and the many picturesque and interesting spots which lie in the immediate neighbourhood.
Just round the Nothe, the green and jutting headland between which and the pier the entrance to Weymouth Harbour lies, are Portland Roads, the magnificent harbour in which, when not at sea, the Home fleet frequently anchors. To every one who has yachted along the south coast, or gone down the Channel into the outer seas, this roadstead, and the Isle of Portland—which is in reality no island at all, but a peninsula—are perfectly familiar.
Known chiefly as the site of one of our chief convict prisons and of almost world-famous stone quarries, Portland, or the “Isle of Slingers,” forms a unique seamark, and is a place of considerable interest. This strange tongue of rocky land, which has been called “the Gibraltar of England,” is connected with the mainland by the wonderful Chesil Beach, which is an immense ridge or bank of pebbles some fifteen miles in length, varying in height and ranging from 170 to upwards of 200 yards in width. The beach is separated from the mainland as far as Abbotsbury by the Fleet. The word “Chesil” is Anglo-Saxon for pebble. The stones vary greatly in size, being largest at the Portland end and gradually decreasing until they become quite small at Bridport, where the beach meets the cliffs. So regular, indeed, is this decrease that fishermen landing on the shore at night can easily tell their approximate whereabouts upon taking some of the pebbles in their hands. The stones differ greatly in material and colour, being drawn by the current from all portions of the south-western coasts. There is a tradition among the Portlanders that anyone finding two pebbles alike will be paid a reward of £50, and many fruitless searches have from time to time in former years been made. That this truly marvellous agglomeration is due chiefly to the action of south-westerly gales and the obstruction presented by the Isle of Portland to their dispersion eastward is generally agreed.
There have been many wrecks upon this famous beach since the days when the Roman galleys swept along the coast filled with Cæsar’s legions down to modern times; and rescue is rendered very difficult, and sometimes impossible by the huge rollers which break upon the shingle during southerly and south-westerly gales, creating a terrible under-tow which has over and over again been fatal even to strong swimmers, who attempt to reach the shore from wrecked vessels. Indeed, such a terrible number of disasters have taken place at the Portland end of the beach, that the little creek or bay lying in the curve where the island joins it has come to be known as Dead Man’s Bay.
A little more than a century ago a fleet of transports was wrecked there, with a loss of over a thousand lives, and many miles of the coast was for weeks afterwards strewn with wreckage.
During the terrible storm of November, 1824, the Ebenezer, a sloop of nearly a hundred tons, laden with heavy stores and war material was swept from the sea right over the beach and safely deposited in the Fleet.
To the geologists, the antiquarians, and those interested in the survival of old customs Portland is of peculiar interest, and it is not wonderful that novelists should have found in the “rugged” isle an appropriate background for their romances. Victor Hugo has described the spot very fully (if somewhat inaccurately) in his L’Homme qui Rit; and the greater portion of the action of The Well-Beloved, that strangely elusive romance of Thomas Hardy, takes place upon the island, in the neighbourhood of Fortune’s Well, and Pennsylvania Castle, built by the grandson of the famous William Penn. This book contains some of the finest pen pictures of the scenery in “The Isle of Slingers” ever written.
There are two lighthouses at the southern end of the island; the lower one was built as long ago as 1789, and the higher one in 1817, rebuilt just half a century later. Both are furnished with extremely powerful lights, which can be seen for many miles along the coast.