Memories of a week's family holiday in Devon where we are camping just outside Sidmouth. There were six of us with 3 generations of family and a friend of our daughter. Come with us as we visit Sidmouth, Lyme Regis, Morwellham Quay, Torquay, Paignton and Beer.
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Thursday 22 Feb 1996. We left Poole and drove to Weymouth where the sun came out for a while to cheer us up.
By the time we got to Weymouth it was dinnertime and the town was surprisingly crowded. We even had to queue to park the car. The cafe we had visited on a previous visit was full and we ended up with a somewhat disappointing sandwich in a dockside pub that was crammed full to bursting.
Once twin towns of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, to either side of Weymouth Harbour, they were rivals for the use of the harbour to such an extent that Queen Elizabeth I got so tired of the steady streams of complaints and petitions by one against the other, she united them as a single borough through an Act of Parliament in 1571. Despite Melcombe Regis being the main centre, the new borough became known as Weymouth. In the 18th century the town was patronised by King George III. There is a statue of him in the town and at Osmington, four miles to the north east, is a chalk cut hill figure of the king riding a horse. Perhaps unfortunately for the town, it shows the king riding away from Weymouth.
The harbour was a major embarkation point for some half million Allied troops to board for the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in World War II. At the time we visited it was the port for ferry crossings to the Channel Isles.
Havelet is a roll-on roll-off car ferry. She started life as the Cornouailles with Brittany Ferries in 1977 and later transferred to British Channel Islands Ferries as Havelet operating for them between 1989 and 2000 between Weymouth (later Poole) and the Channel Islands. A bit unstable, she had aft sponsons added in 1990 at which time her rear deck was extended towards the stern, making a longer ship. In 1992 travelling out of Cork and bound for Roscoff in Brittany, she was struck by a large wave and in danger of sinking, but managed to right herself and return to Cork for repairs and reports. The only damage found was to the cars she was carrying. In 1994 she transferred to Condor travelling between Weymouth and the Channel Islands in which role she is pictured. Subsequently she was sold to Prekookeanska Plovidbla, the parent company of Montenegro Lines in 2000 and operated between Bar and Bari being renamed Sveti Stefan before being scrapped in 2013.
The sunshine was somewhat illusory - the cold drove us back to the car and the car drove us seven miles to a hill just outside the county town of Dorchester. Maiden Castle is one of the largest and certainly one of the most impressive iron age hill forts in England. Despite a complex system of zig-zag paths that attackers had to negotiate to reach the gates whilst the defenders threw all sorts of nasties at them, the Romans succeeded in storming the place after bombarding it with rocks with their siege engines.
It was windy and bitterly cold. Miss Franny opted to stay in the car whilst I trudged uphill, bent almost double against the wind and cold. I found the ramparts guarded now as they would have been when the fort was still inhabited - by companies of highly trained 'battle sheep', more commonly known as 'battering rams'.
Get back in the car you silly old fool! Hey - less of the old. I was only a silly middle aged fool then...
A series of articles covering a short break in Devon and Dorset, taking in Sidmouth and Seaton, Beer, Lyme Regis, Wareham, Weymouth and the Cerne Abbas Giant.
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Wednesday 25 June 2014. We left Wareham intending to slowly meander back towards Seaton. So well did we meander that we found ourselves in Weymouth...
The last couple of times (the only times) we have been to Weymouth we ended up at the spot where the River Wey gives the town its name. I remember a huge warehouse called Brewer's Quay. Anyway this time we parked and a few minutes of walking brought us to a much more traditional seaside with a lovely sandy beach and even a Punch and Judy stall, though this was closed.
A beach cafe with a curved roof was having the roof washed clean by mops wielded carefully by three chaps in their twenties, at least one of whom did not look too comfortable with standing on the roof...
Apart from this one cafe, we struggled to find a cafe selling food and it did make me reflect a little on how times have changed from the seaside trips of my youth. Seaside towns were filled with cafes in those days of the 1950s through to the 1970s which stayed open to serve evening meals. Now, like any high street you might care to name in England, the cafes close at 4:30 or 5:00pm and if you are not served a meal in your hotel then there is little choice but for a full-blown restaurant (which are rare on high streets anyway) or a pub meal.
I really miss those small cafes with their Pyrex cups and saucers and the steam injectors for making what we used to call "frothy coffee". They filled the gap between fish and chips dining rooms and roast beef/lamb/chicken restaurants. You could have fish or pies from the one or roasts from the other but you could also have any combination of sausage, egg, beans, fish fingers, chips, mash etc. None of that appeared on a special children's menu. Adults were allowed to eat it if they wanted. If you wanted a small portion for a child you asked for it and it was no problem.
And best of all, they had jukeboxes where you could play your favourite record for 3d, three songs for 6d or a giddy five records for a shilling (1¼p, 2½p and 5p respectively)
Thursday 26 June 2014. Hometime, by gad! We have breakfast and say farewell to Seaton, the Bay Tree House B&B and David and Sue, our hosts. I had it in mind to wend our way up through the Cotswolds after a first stop at somewhere I'd wanted to visit for some time.
I'd put on the SatNav to get us to Cerne Abbas. What a roller coaster of a ride that was! Almost as exciting as the bus journey from Beer the other day! At one point I drove through a river by a ford! No... not a Focus, but an actual ford - the road giving way to a few cobbles that made up that part of the river bed whilst the water splashed against the wheels and exhaust. I remembered that old public information film where the Hillman Minx ended up in a ditch after driving through a ford and I dried my brakes as recommended, causing Fran to say anxiously "Is something wrong?" as we slammed to a halt...
Anyway! The Cerne Abbas Giant! First references to it appear to be from the 1690s. As with many of our chalk cut figures, it can't be seen properly unless you fly above it. Makes you wonder a bit when you know it was built when men could only dream of flying above it with hundreds of years to pass before any of them would. Makes you wonder even more with things like the Uffington white horse which can hardly be seen at all from the ground and that is 3,000 years old!
Well, we didn't have an aeroplane handy so ten minutes was time enough. I set the SatNav for Cirencester and of course it took us straight back across to Taunton and the M5... I suggested we head up the A38 instead which should let us get to the Midlands before having to go on the motorway. Unfortunately just before Bristol the A38 was closed by a police car sitting across it, by which I inferred there was a serious accident blocking it somewhere close and after a very long detour we ended up on a very crowded motorway for the rest of the trip home.
Suffice it to say that progress was so slow that we drove onto Charnock Richard services for our tea. Usually those services are only 45 minutes from home. But it had reached 8:00pm and we are both diabetic and were needing to eat. And that is it. Another Burke trip brought to an end. I hope you've enjoyed these few articles - the weather this week was very kind to us and I think the photographs mainly reflect that too. Lovely deep blue skies, brought out by my use of a polarising filter on the camera.
Monday 9 August 1993. Our south coast holiday today takes in Weymouth.
Weymouth is a bit like two different towns - which in fact it did used to be. They were either side of the harbour, but were united as a single borough by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571. The town of Melcombe Regis lost its name and identity and the town of Weymouth suddenly became a lot bigger.
A typical south coast town with a busy harbour and lots of comings and goings to watch. Unfortunately the weather wasn't particularly kind this day but who cares, when you holiday in the UK you soon learn to just get on with it!
There was lots of different types of boats and ships in the harbour. There is a fishing fleet, a number of smaller boats taking fishing charters and the odd cross-Channel ferry to watch whilst you dodge the seagulls.
Lots of atmospheric old pubs down by the quayside. Some of them no doubt were used to the sight of the Press Gang at some point in their history - that somewhat brutal way of taking any able-bodied men who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and enforcing naval service on them regardless of whether they were married, or whatever their circumstances. It could be many years before such men saw their homes again, if indeed they ever did.
The King's Arms is right on the quayside. Not sure where his legs were...
We tried the Old Rooms Inn for a spot of lunch but there wasn't anything that took our fancy. We decided to move elsewhere!
A large warehouse complex known as Brewers Quay had been transformed into a shopping mall with a collection of small outlets and cafes and we had our lunch there before resuming our exploration of the harbour.
It was quite crowded inside and we had to wait for a table to become available, especially as there were six of us.
We came out again and back to the harbour, thinking to have a walk to the west where Weymouth takes on more of a holiday seaside air. A large Seacat ferry was gliding in and gave us a bit of added interest.
Oh my goodness, the dreaded whelk! And jellied eels - yuk! Despite living in Blackpool (now "near" Blackpool) I was born and brought up in the centre of the north on the edge of the Pennines and have always viewed shellfish and seafood (apart from fish and chips) with the utmost suspicion. Picking things out of shells with a pin sounds revolting enough without having to put it in your mouth...
The sea hasn't any huge rollers or crashing waves but still manages to hold the attention with a hypnotising regular ebbing and flowing, dragging water back into itself (and a fair bit of red sand) to launch the next assault on the beach.
