Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter by Edric Holmes
page 114 of 340 (33%)
page 114 of 340 (33%)
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in the oldest of the breakwaters was five million tons.
If the road is taken into Portland the village of Rodwell, at which there is a station, is at the parting of the ways, that to the left leading to the shore at Sandsfoot Castle, one of Henry's block houses that played a part in the Civil War. It is not a particularly picturesque ruin, though its purchase by the Weymouth corporation will prevent any more of the wanton damage it has suffered in the past. The other route goes direct to Wyke Regis, upon the hill above East Fleet and the Chesil Bank. Wyke is the mother church of Weymouth and is a fine Perpendicular structure in a magnificent position. Its list of rectors starts in 1302, so that the church must be on the site of an earlier building. The churchyard is the resting place of a large number of shipwrecked sailors who have met their death in the dread "Deadman's Bay," as this end of the great West Bay is termed. The road into Portland is across a bridge built in 1839, the first to connect the island-peninsula with the mainland. Then follows a long two miles of monotony along the eastern end of Chesil Beach, and the most ardent pedestrian will prefer to take to the railway at least as far as Portland station if not to the terminus at Easton. The lonely stretch of West Bay, in sharp contrast to the animation of the Roads, cannot be seen unless the high bank of shingle on the right is ascended. Portland Castle is on the nearest point of the island to the mainland. This also was built by Henry VIII and is in good repair and inhabited by one of the officers of the garrison. The road ascends to Fortune's Well, as uninteresting a "capital" as could well be imagined and for the sheer ugliness of its buildings and church probably unsurpassed. Its only claim to notice is the |
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