Weymouth – The Blog for the Black-Slash Creative Portal

July 14, 2022November 15, 2022

The Wishing Well at Upwey: A History

Another lockdown project comes to fruition and has now just been published. This is all about The Wishing Well at Upwey, Weymouth in Dorset. This place is special to many people, tourists and locals alike. When I started this I had no idea how much history there was to uncover, particularly to do with Royalty. Indeed, I started this after I had looked into King George III and Upwey (see another post), when I discovered that the King came to the Wishing Well.

The link to the full article is no longer available as it now forms part of a book, available on Amazon.

Click the image to view the book on Amazon

The location seems to have been favoured by Royalty. Those who visited include the following:

King George III. and his wife Queen Charlotte, who came repeatedly, with the princesses.

Prince Arthur, son of Queen Victoria

The Duchess of York, who would go on to become Queen Mary, consort to King George V.

The Prince of Wales, who would go on to become King Edward VIII.

Outside of Royalty, famous visitors include Thomas Hardy, who came her on at least one occasion when on a cycle tour with his niece. It seems like John Cowper Powys would have also visited, because he includes the place in his novel Weymouth Sands.

July 14, 2022November 15, 2022

Thomas Hardy and Upwey

Another lockdown project completed and published. This one examines in depth the relationship between the great writer Thomas Hardy and Upwey, a village in Dorset between Dorchester and Weymouth, now absorbed into the latter.

Thomas Hardy had close relatives who lived in Upwey, and the main focus of these seems to have been The Royal Standard public house and nearby buildings. Thomas Hardy also used locations in and around the village in his writings, including Under the Greenwood Tree (The Old Ship Inn) and The Trumpet Major. I also discovered that Thomas Hardy visited The Wishing Well at Upwey.

I was unable to come across any earlier examination of Thomas Hardy’s paternal aunts in Upwey, so this may be the first publication of this kind.

The link to the full article is no longer available as it now forms part of a book.

Please click the image to view the book on Amazon

The Royal Standard, Upwey, Weymouth, Dorset

October 26, 2021November 15, 2022

King George III in and around Upwey, Weymouth, Dorset

The article once linked here is no longer available as it now forms part of a book.

The article examines the activities of the Royal Family in the area around Upwey, which is about 4 miles north of Weymouth town centre. This started as a project during the “lockdowns” when I found myself unable to travel to do the research for my next project on Anglo-Saxon history. Instead, I found myself reading more and more books on local history. I noticed a few references to King George visiting Upwey, which whetted my appetite and I wanted to learn more. What I found out quite surprised me in that the King, and even more so his wife Queen Charlotte, visited the area on many occasions.

Looking from south-west to north east over Upwey. The part of Upwey where the church is located is out of shot to the left. In the distance ((with the clump of trees) is Bincombe Down

The Royal Standard, Upwey. King George III would have passed this location more than 90 times. Perhaps this is why this pub has this name, although I have no evidence that there was a pub here at the time of King George’s visits. It is one of my favourite pubs.

March 5, 2019

War Cemetery, Etaples

This beautiful poem, titled “Time stands still” was written by Danielle Wootton after a visit to Etaples military cemetary in northern France, where her great grandfather, private William Horn was interred after he was killed there in the First World War, aged 32.

Time stands still for war graves covered in dust,
Surrounded by toiling gardeners not able to forget the bones beneath their feet,
Death fails to distinguish between national pride they are now soldier’s simply lying side-by-side,
Some made enemies in life for reasons not of their own,
Buried beneath headstones constructed from limestone brought as a memorial from home,
How the graves dazzle’s when the sun is out,
Looking all dressed up in their Sunday best here they wait in lines for people who may never come,
Other graves witness relative’s secrets untold to the living, The graves have no voice to care, they are at peace now,
Sorrow now rests with relatives who mourn a person they never knew but will never forget,
When the wind rustles through the graves shaking the trees, it is time for the relatives to leave, with their hearts on their sleeves,
The graves let out a sigh and yawn they can go back to sleep as their duty has
passed on,
Time has stood still for the graves but not for us

Time Stands Still being read by Paul Kelly at Danny Boyle’s Pages of the Sea event in Weymouth in 2018.