First and Last Loves

part of the town. It is now known as “Radipole Lake” since Municipal effort is trying to develop it as an “amenity”—too late, I fear, for the railway runs close beside it and the new industrial suburb of Westham gives it a red brick crown. Salt marsh, unsuitable even for the greediest speculative builder as a site for seaside chalets, lies to the east of Weymouth. The River Wey runs out between old wharves and houses of the united towns of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. And here the river is deep enough to harbour Channel Island steamers. If it were not for the gracious Georgian terraces, mostly of dark-red brick, relieved by bow windows, or by houses in silver-grey Portland stone, Weymouth would be, as it once was, two tiny villages either side of a tidal river, with acres of salt marsh and a wonderful sandy beach.

As it is, there are three Weymouths. The Weymouth of the Fleet, Weymouth itself, and Weymouth of the summer visitors.

Weymouth of the Fleet! From distant windy downs above the town, or better still, from that neck of railway, road and pebbles which links Portland to the mainland, may be seen in Portland harbour the ships of the Royal Navy, and lovely they look in the sunlight in their new greeny-grey coats of paint. And loveliest of all is the harbour, at night when the Fleet is in. Then not all the fairy lights and flood lights along the seafront of Weymouth round the corner could match this rival constellation to the heavens, twinkling against the velvet blackness of Portland. Ah, with what longing did the girls of Weymouth, Wyke and Rodwell, lean from upstairs windows and look across to those twinkling lights and whisper the magic words “The Fleet is in!” What dances! What parties! I once fell desperately in love with a Weymouth girl, the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. I never declared my affection. I do not think I even had a dance with her. I just looked and loved while the moon shimmered in Weymouth Bay and the Fleet twinkled in Portland Harbour, and the band played My Sweet Hortense.

Now for Weymouth itself. It is Hardy’s “Havenpool Town” where the Chapel Organist of his strange poem was seen by a suspicious member of the congregation “comrading close a sea-captain,” it is old Weymouth. A place of narrow straight streets, still undisfigured. Every house that can has a bow window as though desperate to glimpse somehow the sky and the sea. The houses are mostly brick, a few stucco-faced. The graceful late Georgian bows are semicircular and rise to the first floor but do not generally reach the second floor. The bows are painted cream and their wooden cornices are well moulded. A few dignified classic buildings are in Portland stone—and how richly silvery-white this stone is here—where it is near its native quarry and unblackened by London smoke. The Guildhall, a stately building of 1836, in Greek Ionic style, and Melcombe Regis Parish Church are of this stone.

And what of Weymouth of the summer visitors? When George III stepped out of his bathing machine into the sea at Melcombe and the band struck up “God Save the King,” he set a fashion. Then the town expanded in dark brick or silver stone terraces along the sea front. These terraces may not be grand Georgian like Brighton, but they are simple country work, a setting down by the sea of the decent houses of the county town of Dorchester. The best work of art in Weymouth (except possibly the forbidden Thornhill altar piece) is the statue of King George III where all the buses meet at the front.Poor good King George who made Weymouth a famous watering place! What has Weymouth done to you but paint your statue and its attendant lions in garish colours, making you clash ridiculously with the noble Portland stone plinth on which you stand?

The sands and the bands and the bathing and the climate are all fine. But to see Georgian Weymouth going jazzy, to see arcades of pin-tables, blaring with electric lights and synthetic music, while the sun shines and the waves sparkle outside, to see hideous new buildings in white tiles jammed up against old brick and Portland stone, is rather like seeing an old woman in a dress too young for her. If Weymouth thinks the old woman is worth preserving, let her save the famous stretch of Georgian seafront, from the gentle beauty of Pultney and Devonshire Buildings at the west to the grander terraces on the east of the Esplanade. And let her save those modest Georgian streets and lanes of the old town. It will pay in the end. Buildings are the only record of civilisation. Weymouth still looks civilised. But how long will it be allowed to keep this asset of a civilised appearance? Sidmouth

A silver mist of heat hung over Sidmouth when I came into it. A silver mist of heat was over it when I went away. The climate is so dominant in Sidmouth you can almost touch it. In Connaught Gardens—a modern piece of Italian-style gardening on a cliff top, with a view through arches of red cliffs five hundred feet high—sheltered from the sea breeze, plants would flower and flower as high as the cliffs themselves if only the wind would let them. For that is one of the first things I noticed about Sidmouth. As soon as I was out of the gentle sea breeze I was in a hot-house where wonderful west country bushes filled the air with scent, and enormous butterflies lit on asters and on antirrhinums, themselves twice as large as life. Fuchsia bells seemed three times the size of those anywhere else in Britain.If it were not for the sea Sidmouth, I thought, would be tropic forest. Devon hills protect it on all but the seaward side. Peakhill and Salcombe Hill guard the town