Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter by Edric Holmes
page 111 of 340 (32%)
page 111 of 340 (32%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
that the monarch holds is tipped with gold. The contrast with the
enormous expanse of white base, out of all proportion to the little black figure of the King, is strangely startling. 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. |
|