WOOLBRIDGE HOUSE--LULWORTH COVE--OWERMOIGNE--WEYMOUTH
The seventeen miles between Wareham and Dorchester, through Wool and
Warmwell Cross, traverse pretty country and encounter interesting
places. Passing the “Pure Drop” Inn, we come to the hamlet of East
Stoke. Half a mile to the left, across the River Frome, which runs
parallel with the road thus far, are the scanty remains of Bindon
Abbey, in a dark situation amid dense trees, and with black and
stagnant moat. The stone sarcophagus of some forgotten Abbot of Bindon,
resting on the grass, figures in _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ as that
in which the sleep-walking Angel Clare laid Tess. We now come suddenly
upon a delightful scene, as the road to Wool is resumed. There, on
the right, on the other side of the sedgy Frome, rise the steep roofs
and clustered chimneys of such a romantic-looking Elizabethan
manor-house as those that were used years ago to make the fortunes of
Christmas numbers, in tales of ghosts and hauntings. This is Woolbridge
House. The bridge by which one crosses the Frome to it is much more
ancient than the house itself, and is a fine, stone-built Gothic
structure, with pointed arches and cut-waters up and down stream. The
mansion, now a farmhouse belonging to the Erle-Drax family, was once
the property of the Turbervilles, who became possessed of some of the
lands of Bindon Abbey; and it is therefore with every warranty that
Mr. Hardy made the old place figure in his greatest novel, _Tess of
the D’Urbervilles_. Moreover, it does not merely look as though it
should be haunted, but actually has, or had, that reputation. It is
a particularly creepy and full-flavoured ghost-story that belongs
to Woolbridge House--none other, indeed, than that of a passionate
Turberville who murdered one of his guests when out for a drive in the
family chariot. Unfortunately, this inhospitable deed was perpetrated
“once upon a time,” which is the nearest thing the serious historian
can make of it; and it will be conceded that this presents some
difficulties for the inquirer. The guest, it appears, was one of the
family. For many generations the awful apparition of the Turberville
coach was believed in, but we do not hear so much of it in these
times. It was accustomed to drive up at nights to the house, in every
detail of ghastly horror. Ordinary persons--plebeian rustics and the
like--might hear it, but only those in whose veins coursed the old
hot Turberville blood might actually see the apparition; and as there
is not anyone locally known to be of kin to that ancient family, it
follows of necessity that ghostly manifestations have long since
ceased. But in his novel Mr. Hardy has made splendid use of the old
house and of the two life-size portraits of women, supposed to be
Turbervilles, that are painted on upstairs walls.
[Illustration: BERE REGIS.
The “Kingsbere” of Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles.” The
church contains a carved, painted, and gilt roof that is worth
travelling all Wessex to see.]
The immediate neighbour of Woolbridge House, on this side of the Frome,
is Wool railway-station, and on the left again is the village of Wool.
The coast is reached in four and a half miles, at Lulworth, where those
who do not feel equal to thoroughly tracing the wild and solitary and
extremely beautiful coast-line of Dorset can at least sample it at
one of its most delightful spots. There are two closely-neighboured
Lulworths--East Lulworth, inland, where the curious castle, built
about 1599–1650 by Lord Bindon and his successors, the Weld family,
is seen; and West Lulworth, through which one descends to the Cove.
This is an almost perfect circle, eaten out of the limestone rock
by the sea, and surrounded on the landward side by bold treeless
downs. Summer at Lulworth is a sheer delight for those who like quiet
holidays. The Cove, with its light blue waters, looks a veritable bath
of the Naiads, and should be, if such things were, the watery boudoir
of mermaids. Here the cliffs rise up to sheer dizzy heights on the
western horn of the tiny bay, with wildly contorted strata and truly
awful chasms at Stair Hole. The like upside-down condition of the local
geology may be observed at the romantic spot, some two miles farther
west, called Durdle Door, where the cliffs plunge into the sea with
their stratification perpendicular and streaked with the loveliest
tints. The “door” of Durdle Door is a natural archway in the cliffs.
If time and energy permit, there is a splendid field for exploration
eastwards, past East Lulworth and on to Arishmill Gap, Worbarrow Bay,
and Kimmeridge.
But to resume the inland road to Dorchester. From Wool we come in
some four miles to Owermoigne, a rustic village of thatched cottages
which figures as “Nether Mynton” in that diverting short story _The
Distracted Preacher_, a tale of smugglers and their quaint ways with
lace and brandy-tubs and the old church, founded on the actual doings
of the “free-traders” who were accustomed to hide their contraband in
the church tower, in the pulpit itself, or in the tombs of the rude
forefathers of the village. At the cross-roads beyond Owermoigne, known
as “Warmwell Cross,” a ready way lies into Weymouth, through Poxwell,
Osmington, and Preston, a route with its own especial features--such,
for instance, as the charming old manor-house of Poxwell, the “Oxwell”
of _The Trumpet Major_, with the tall walls enclosing its grounds and
the pretty architectural detail of a porter’s lodge. The mansion is
now a farmhouse. From Osmington steep ways lead down to a favourite
excursion from Weymouth, the romantic Osmington Mills, near the sea.
Here one may observe on the steep grassy sides of the hills the
martial equestrian effigy of George III., whose making is described so
humorously in _The Trumpet Major_: “The King’s head is to be as big as
our millpond, and his body as big as this garden; he and the horse will
cover more than an acre.”
Descending steeply through Preston, Weymouth is reached along some two
miles of level, skirting the curving shores of Weymouth Bay.
Weymouth, created for all practical purposes by George III., just
as Brighton arose under the patronage of his son, George IV., is a
likeable place, and not at all out of touch with the real Wessex.
For it is of the Weymouth of _The Trumpet Major_, that delightful
end-of-the-eighteenth-century love-story, that one thinks as the
town is entered. It is as “Budmouth” that it finds mention in those
pages, and the “Budmouth” of the Georgian period it in all essentials
remains, with the staid red-brick houses of that time still lining
the curving shore, which enthusiasts liken to the curving shores of
the Bay of Naples. And, indeed, the sea in Weymouth Bay is often of a
wondrous opalescent blue, rare enough off our coasts. The inhabitants
of Weymouth did well to raise a statue to “Farmer George,” as an
acknowledgment of benefits received. It was unveiled in 1810, and has
since that time aroused the mingled amusement and contempt of all sorts
and conditions of men. For my part, I keep all my contempt for the
public statues erected in London yester-year, and cherish a liking for
that statue and its surroundings. It is at least a composition, and
one ought to feel grateful to the sculptor, who represented the King
in the ordinary dress of the age, instead of in an impossible Roman
costume.
Behind this statue is St. Mary’s Street, narrow, with a congeries
of narrower alleys leading out of it. This is the most picturesque
corner of the town, and gives upon the harbour, past a house in whose
gable wall still rests the cannon-shot fired in the siege of 1644. The
harbour is really the sea-estuary of the River Wey. The old original
Weymouth is on the other side, with the beautiful backwater on the
right, reaching to Radipole.
The chief scenic asset of Weymouth is, of course, the great rock of
Portland, the Gibraltar of Wessex, the “Isle of Portland,” tethered
to the mainland only by the long shingly spit of the Chesil Beach.
Thence comes the famous Portland stone, and there is the equally famous
Portland Prison. There, too, are forts with heavy guns, the great
breakwater, and various other appointments and developments that render
this a strong naval rendezvous. A great assemblage of battleships in
Weymouth Bay is not the least among the many attractions that Weymouth
has to offer.
On the crest of the steep hill at Wyke, as you leave the town for
Portland, is the great church of Wyke Regis, the mother-church of
Weymouth, with memorials of many sailors wrecked in Deadman’s Bay,
which extends westward from Portland to Bridport. Here, too, the
diligent may seek and find the epitaph of one “William Lewis, who was
killed by a shot from the _Pigmy_ schooner, 21st April, 1822. Aged
33 years.” Lewis was a smuggler, killed in the course of one of his
illegal expeditions; but the verses upon his tombstone take no count of
that, and call down curses upon whoever fired the shot.
From Wyke the road descends steeply, and, crossing the Fleet Bridge,
leads along two miles of flat road across the Chesil Beach. The
stranger would hardly expect to see so much shingle in the whole world
as he finds here. It is a vast accumulation of pebbles running westward
hence as far as West Bay, Bridport. Its total length is eighteen miles,
and it varies from a hundred yards to more than a quarter of a mile
in breadth, its pebbles ranging gradually in size from Brobdingnagian
specimens, about the size of a breakfast-plate, at Portland to the
tiniest particles at West Bay.