Weymouth

Weymouth, a fashionable watering-place of Dorsetshire, 7½ miles S. of Dorchester, 77 S. of Bristol, and 145 WSW. of London (128 by road). It lies at the mouth of the little Wey, on a beautiful bay, bounded E. by St Albans Head and W. by the 'Isle' of Portland (q.v.), and here divided by the projecting Nothe into Weymouth Bay and Portland Roads. The Wey, after widening into the tidal 'Backwater,' enters the sea, and separates the two quarters of the town—old Weymouth proper on the south, and modern Melcombe-Regis, facing the bay, on the north. Both were separate boroughs till 1571, and they still returned two members apiece till 1832, then two conjointly till 1885. A bridge, reconstructed in 1881, connects them; and Melcombe-Regis, which rose into repute through George III.'s frequent visits from 1789, has capital sands, an esplanade over a mile long, statues of King George (1809) and Sir H. Edwards (1885), numerous hotels, and a pile pier 1050 feet long, constructed in 1859 at a cost of £12,000. The Nothe has been strongly fortified since the Crimean war. There is some shipping, steamers running between here and the Channel Islands, and an export trade in Portland stone and Roman cement. Thomas Love Peacock was born here, and here Southey first saw the sea. Pop. (1821) 6622; (1851) 9458; (1891) 13,769. See works by G. A. Ellis (1829) and Robert Damon (1860).