As we are now a good deal out of the direct-road route from Dorchester to Weymouth, the visitor may be advised to take the rail motor from Abbotsbury to the maritime town, especially as, after passing through the Waddon Vale, the road leading thither is bare, treeless, and devoid of interest.
Weymouth has been described a thousand times, and it is not unworthy of it, lying as it does in a long curve with the whole town visible from the sea. It is artistically placed, and is a brilliant if somewhat old-fashioned jewel set amid a sea of amethyst and turquoise. Modern Weymouth is made up of two distinct boroughs, Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, which were united by Queen Elizabeth. It is a town whose beginnings are lost in obscurity, although its early history is not of a very engrossing kind. After passing through various phases of fortune and misfortune, with a preponderance of the latter, the place was nothing but a decayed seaport until George III and his Court, coming here to reside in the closing years of the eighteenth century, instilled new life into the town, which has retained, despite the modern builder, considerable architectural remains of this period of its greatest prosperity. The shops have unfortunately been modernized, but the greater number of the old Georgian rows of dwelling houses are intact. Gloucester Lodge, now the Gloucester Hotel, was the royal residence, before which "a picket of a thousand men mounted guard every day". Queen Charlotte's Second Keeper of the Robes was Fanny Burney, who, in her Diary, has left us a very interesting account of the Court life at Weymouth.
With the exception of Casterbridge, Budmouth figures more frequently in the Wessex novels than any other place, and is especially prominent in The Trumpet-Major. By the statue of King George, "wonderfully and fearfully made", Dick Dewy met Fancy Day; and the bridge over the harbour is mentioned in the Well-Beloved. Bob Loveday was familiar with its harbour, and his brother John knew its barracks; and here Anne Garland studied the latest fashions. It was on the esplanade that Festus Derriman cut "a fine figure of a soldier", and here Jocelyn Pierston was staying when he met with two incarnations of the Well-Beloved. In The Dynasts, the interview between King George and Pitt takes place at Gloucester Lodge, and in the Old Rooms Inn across the harbour the Battle of Trafalgar was discussed.
Some four miles to the south of Weymouth lies the "Isle of Slingers" (Portland), the pleasantest way to reach which is by one of the numerous steamers that make the trip. Entering an opening in the great breakwater that encloses the mighty roadstead of Portland, the visitor will notice the ruins of an old castle that stand on the edge of a sandy and rapidly disappearing cliff. This is all that is left of Sandsfoot Castle, built in the time of Henry VIII, and the "right goodlie Castel" of Leland's day. This was the place appointed by Pierston for his farewell to Avice. Our little craft threads her way quickly through the mighty battleships and cruisers that lie securely within this murally enclosed basin of sea, and we glide into the little harbour at the base of the mighty rock. The first aspect of the place, owing partly to the absence of trees, is stern and rather uninviting, but, for those who know it, the rocky mass of Portland has many attractions. From the high land a fine view is obtained of the Chesil Beach, that extraordinary bank of pebbles that connects the "island" with the mainland at Abbotsbury, ten miles away. Farther west is Bridport, the "Port Bredy" of the novels, and a pleasantly situated town, whose marine suburb of West Bay contains a useful little harbour wherein vessels of a small tonnage can enter at high tides. Six miles to the north of Bridport is Beaminster (Emminster), the home of Angel Clare, whither Tess made her way in the hope of obtaining news of her husband.
Interesting as is the rock of Portland as seen from the Bill or from the sandy little cove of Church Ope, the seaward faces of the promontory are best observed from the deck of a boat, when all the elements that go usually to form a picture on a level surface are here raised nearly to the perpendicular, and, by reflecting the sun's rays at a slight angle, produce effects as violent in their nature as they are startling in their novelty of colour. In The Souls of the Slain, the Bill or Beal of Portland is well described:
"The thick lids of night closed upon me
Alone at the Bill
Of the Isle by the Race—
Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face—
And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me