Weymouth, Dorset
| Weymouth | |
|---|---|
 The Promenade | |
| OS Grid Reference: | SY676794 |
| Lat/Lon: | Template:Coor dm NW |
| Population: | 63,648[1] |
| Dwellings: | 27,156 |
| Formal status: | Town |
| Administration | |
| County: | Dorset |
| Region: | South West |
| Nation: | England |
| Post Office and Telephone | |
| Post town: | Weymouth |
| Postcode: | DT3, DT4 |
| Dialling Code: | 01305 |
Weymouth is a town in Dorset, England, situated on a sheltered bay at the mouth of the River Wey on the English Channel coast. The town is eight miles south of Dorchester, and just north of the Isle of Portland. The district of Weymouth and Portland has a population of 63,648.
The town's successful economy depends on its harbour and the beaches of Weymouth Bay. While fishing has declined in importance and little freight now passes through the port, tourism has long had a place in the town. The harbour is now home to cross-channel ferries, pleasure boats and private yachts. The borough of Weymouth and Portland has a reputation of being one of the sunniest places in Britain, rivalling other south coast resorts such as Eastbourne for the title.
History
Weymouth originated as a post-Conquest settlement on a constricted site to the south and west of Weymouth Harbour, part of the waste of Wyke Regis. A settlement here is not noted until the 13th century, the likelihood being that the town developed from the mid 12th century onwards. (The few earlier references appear to be to the geographical feaure of the mouth of the River Wey from which the settlement took its name, not to the settlement itself.) By 1252 it was sufficiently established as a seaport to become a chartered borough.[2]
Weymouth, or Melcombe Regis, is thought to be the first port at which the Black Death came into England, aboard a visiting spice ship in June 1348.[2]
In their early history Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, the town and borough established on the north and east side of the harbour, were rivals for trade and industry, but the towns were united in an Act of Parliament in 1571 to form the double borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, since when both towns have become known simply as Weymouth.[3] The town now also encompasses the outlying suburbs of Upwey, Broadway, Preston, Wyke Regis, Chickerell, Southill, Radipole and Littlemoor.
During the English Civil War (1642-51) more than 500 people were killed in the Battle of Weymouth on the 27th February 1645.[4]
Emigrants from the town settled in Weymouth, Nova Scotia, and Weymouth, Massachusetts. The first settlers of Salem (then called Naumking), Massachusetts, later infamous for its "Witch Trials", came from Weymouth, Dorset. There is a monument to that effect, on the side of Weymouth Harbour.
The town is amongst the first modern tourist destinations, after King George III made Weymouth his summer holiday residence on fourteen occasions between 1789 and 1805. The seafront is still largely the original Georgian terraces. A mounted white horse representing King George is carved into the chalk hills to the east of the town. Legend has it that, because the horse faces away from the town, the King took offence, believing it was a sign that the townspeople did not welcome him, and that the designer subsequently hanged himself. This is probably not true as King George died before its completion.
Weymouth and Portland were extremely important in World War II. Portland harbour was home to a large naval base, and Weymouth was home to Nothe Fort, together an important part of the D-Day preparations and Bouncing bomb development.
Weymouth's history is documented at the Brewers Quay Timewalk museum.
Weymouth Harbour
The harbour is situated in the centre of the town and was the reason for its foundation. The old harbour still hosts a fishing fleet, and is a terminus for ferries to the Channel Islands. There are also boats offering pleasure trips, and there is still a small passenger ferry service across the harbour.
The Inner Harbour is a recently refurbished marina with many hundreds of berths for pleasure boats, cruisers and sailing boats, which has earned Weymouth the title of 'the playground of the rich and famous'.
Geology and ecology
Weymouth is situated on weak sand and clay rock which in most places along the Dorset Coast, except for narrow bands at Lulworth Cove, Swanage and Durdle Door, has been eroded and washed away. At Weymouth the weak rock has been protected by Chesil Beach and the strong limestone Isle of Portland that lies just offshore. The Isle of Portland also affects the tides of the area, producing an unusual double low tide in Weymouth bay. Weymouth is separated from Dorchester by the South Dorset Downs, a steep ridge of chalk.
Because Weymouth is low lying, the eastern areas of the town were flooded several times from the sea during extreme low pressure storms, until in the 1980s and 1990s a high sea wall was constructed. Beach nourishment and groynes ensure that the sand beach, important both for tourism and as a natural defence against the sea, is wide and has a shallow incline.[5]
As Weymouth is low lying (below sea level in some areas) and is bounded by lakes and the warm seas, winter frost and snow are rare. The town, along with other low lying areas in the south west, including Torbay and south west Cornwall, experiences the mildest winters in the UK.
The borough has a reputation as one of the sunniest places in Britain, rivalling other South Coast resorts such as Eastbourne for the title. The resort averages 1768 hours of sunshine annually, and between 1990 and 2005 there were five years in which the town had over 2000 hours, a rare event in the UK.[6] Average annual rainfall is 751.7mm (see rainfall in the United Kingdom for comparisons).
Radipole lake, an RSPB Nature Reserve and mouth of the River Wey before it flows into the harbour, is an important habitat for birds and fish.
Tourism and other industries
Tourism has for a long time been the largest industry in Weymouth though this has declined a little as international tourism has grown. As well as its large, shallow sandy beach Weymouth has several museums, an aquarium and a skate park, amongst many other attractions.
The Weymouth Pavilion, rebuilt in 1960 after a fire in 1954, is home to events in the town as well as providing a base for local groups productions like the Weymouth Drama Club, as well as offering touring productions.
The town is also a gateway town situated approximately half-way along Jurassic Coast world heritage site, a 95 mile stretch of the coast important for its geology and unique landforms. In 1995 Weymouth and Portland received almost 500,000 visitors, of which 16,000 were from overseas. Visitors spent UK£76.2 million in the town in 1995.[7] In 2002 the Nothe Fort museum had 12,000 visitors, and the Brewer's Quay Timewalk museum had 41,000 visitors.[8]
The port is small but still has a fishing fleet and takes passenger ferries to the Channel Islands and St. Malo in France. The countryside surrounding Weymouth is less agricultural than the valleys in the centre and north of the county, but has some dairy and arable farms. In 1999 the town centre had 221 shops and 6km² of industrial estates.
Transport
Weymouth railway station is the terminus of the route from London Waterloo and the route from Westbury and Bristol. Although its size had been fully appropriate for the intense rail traffic that came into and out of Weymouth on busy summer Saturdays, it was oversized by the time it was demolished in 1986. A smaller, modern station took up part of the site, while the rest of the old station site was given over to commercial development. Parts of the South West Main Line west of Poole have been reduced from dual to single track reducing the capacity, and as part of 2012 Olympic preparations local councils are lobying the Department for Transport to relay the track and increase services to London and Bristol, as well as introducing new direct services to Exeter.[9]
An unusual feature of railways in Weymouth was that (until 1987) scheduled trains ran through the public streets along the Weymouth Harbour Tramway to the (now closed) Quay Station at the ferry dock. Goods traffic ceased in 1972.
The town is on the A354 road, which connects the town to the A35 trunk road in Dorchester, and which terminates at Easton on Portland. The A353 road runs east from the town to a large roundabout near Warmwell, where it connects with the A352 road to the Isle of Purbeck and Wareham. In the 1980s the town centre was bypassed by the route to Portland, but the government's road building policy changed before the relief road could be completed and the busy A354 follows its original route through the suburbs of Upwey and Broadwey, where traffic problems are common at peak tourist times and particularly on the day of the town's annual carnival. In addition to lack of support from central government, the project has been held up by opposition from residents and environmental groups, who object to the proposed route's partial destruction of a local nature reserve, AONB and SSSI. With Weymouth scheduled to host 2012 Olympic sailing events the project has reopened with the local authorities favouring a more environmentally friendly proposal than in the 1990s.[10]
Contracts for local bus services are held by First Group, which bought the local Southern National company, and by Sureline.
Condor Ferries run an "Express" service from Weymouth to the Channel Islands of Guernsey, Jersey and to the French port of St Malo.
Culture, recreation and sport
The local football team, Weymouth F.C., have remained outside the Football League but, in common with many other non-League clubs, they went professional in 2005. They have enjoyed erratic success at their level over the years, on at least two occasions reaching the third round of the FA Cup (where the top clubs enter the competition). At the end of the 2005-06 season they were crowned Champions of the Conference South (the sixth level of English football) meaning that they will play in the Conference National (the fifth level) for the first time since 1989. Their current home is the out-of-town Wessex Stadium, but until 1987 they played at a ground near the town centre, now the site of a supermarket. The club's move predated the move to new out-of-town grounds by professional league clubs, and came at a time when there had been no new league football stadia opened in England for 32 years. The stadium is now set to be rebuilt again on land occupied by a pitch-and-putt golf course, coincidentally with ASDA again building on the previous stadium site.[11] Weymouth's record attendance for the Wessex Stadium is 10,000 against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup in the 2005-2006 Season.
Just south of Weymouth in Portland Harbour is the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, where the sailing events at the 2012 Olympics will take place.
References
- ^ Census 2001 data from either Dorset County Council factsheet or the Office for National Statistics data.
- ^ a b The Dorset Page, n.d. "Weymouth." Accessed 2006-08-22.
- ^ "The Visitation of Dorsetshire, 1623" quoted in Weymouth and Melcombe Regis Online Parish Records. Accessed 2006-08-22.
- ^ The Dorset Page, n.d. "The Crabchurch Conspiracy." Accessed 2006-08-22.
- ^ Weymouth & Portland Council, 2006. "Beach Monitoring." Accessed 2006-08-22.
- ^ Weymouth & Portland Council, 2005. "Annual Review of Weymouth's weather 2005" Accessed 2006-08-22.
- ^ 1995 tourism data from Dorset County Council facts and figures.
- ^ 2002 tourist attraction visitor numbers from Dorset County Council facts and figures.
- ^ Dorset County Council, 2006 "London 2012 Olympic Games Sailing Events." Accessed 2006-08-22.
- ^ Dorset County Council, 2006. "Weymouth Relief Road." Accessed 2006-06-22.
- ^ Dorset Daily Echo, 2005. "Terras set move date." September 3, 2005.
External links
- Weymouth and Portland Borough Council
- Weymouth-Dorset History
- Weymouth & Portland Independent Tourist Guide
- Pictures of Weymouth Harbour
- Weymouth Residents Discussion Forums And Gallery
- Virtual Tour of Weymouth
- Weymouth & Portland 2012 Olympic Blog
- Weymouth Drama Club
- Weymouth Old Harbour
- A "cab ride" tour of the Weymouth Quay branch
- The Best Of Weymouth & Portland Blog