Wanderings in Wessex: An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to OtterHolmes, Edric
History
Wanderings in Wessex: An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter
Holmes, Edric
England -- Description and travel
Not much can be said for St. Mary's, an eighteenth-century church in
St. Mary's Street which carries the Bloomsbury-by-Sea idea to excess.
The church has a tablet, the epitaph upon which seems quite unique in
the contradictory character it gives to the deceased:
UNDETH 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
The artist was unfortunate in his choice of abbreviations and
strangers are sometimes sorely puzzled; some, indeed, never guess that
"worst" has any connexion with "worthiest." The altar piece, difficult
to see on a dull day, was painted by Sir James Thornhill, a former
representative of the borough in Parliament. Sir Christopher Wren was
also for a time member for Weymouth, and portraits of both, together
with the Duke of Wellington and George III, adorn the Guildhall, a
good building at the west end of St. Mary's Street. The twin towns
were unique in their choice of members; in addition to the great
architect and famous painter, a poet--Richard Glover, author of
_Leonidas_--of no mean repute in his own day, was chosen and the
_original_ Winston Churchill, father of the great Duke of Marlborough,
also sat for Weymouth.
[Illustration: OLD WEYMOUTH.]
Within the Guildhall is to be seen a chest from the captured Armada
galleon and an old chair from Melcombe Friary, of which some poor
remnants existed in Maiden Street almost within living memory. On the
other side of the harbour is Holy Trinity Church, built in 1836. This
has another fine altar painting of the Crucifixion, thought by some
authorities to be by Vandyck.
Certain portions of old Weymouth are very picturesque, with steep
streets and comfortable old bow-windowed lodging-houses patronized
almost exclusively by the better class of seafarer; merchant captains,
pilots and the like. A few of the lanes at the upper end of the
harbour may be termed "slums" by the more fastidious, but it is only
to their outward appearance that the word is applicable. Some of these
cottages are of great age and a number have been allowed to fall to
ruin. In Melcombe Regis at the corner of Edmund and Maiden Streets may
be seen, still embedded in the wall high above the pavement, a cannon
ball shot at the unfortunate town during the Civil War, in which
unhappy period much damage was done, the contending parties
successively occupying the wretched port to the great discomfort of
the burgesses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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