Chapone

return to home page	return to contents page	move to chapter two	top
Chapter One The Growth of Georgian Weymouth
Weymouth and Melcome Regis started life as separate hamlets on either side of the narrow estuary of the River Wey, where it flows into the broad sweep of Weymouth Bay. Over the centuries the estuary was developed into a small but safe harbour for the sailing ships that plied their trade along the English Channel. By the seventeenth century local vessels were venturing regularly as far afield as Newfoundland and the Americas. Weymouth, on the south side of the harbour, grew to occupy much of the narrow shoreline beneath the steep hillside of Chaplehay. Melcome Regis, on the north side of the harbour, spread out slowly across the flat, low-lying, sandy spit of land that separates the open sea from the inner reaches of the River Wey - the "Backwater". There was a great deal of friction between the two towns as they grew in size, but in 1571 Queen Elizebeth I ordered them to form a single Borough. In 1593 a permanent physical link was formed when a wooden bridge was built across the harbour to replace the ancient ferry.
Gradually, over the next two centuries, the Weymouth summer season became firmly established in the social calendar of the "upper classes", although there were continuous complaints about the lack of decent accommodation and recreation facilities in the Borough. To provide places of interest for the growing numbers of wealthy visitors several new public buildings were erected. One of the earliest to be built, probably around 1880, was Harvey’s Library and Card Assembly Room. The architect is not known. Nowadays Harvey’s operates as a public house and restaurant (see below). The building was described in grand terms by Mr. Harvey, its owner, in his Harvey’s Improved Guide of Weymouth of 1800. He said it was "..built in a very elegant style, delightfully situated about the centre of the Esplanade where there is a commodious room to read the newspapers, etc., with every suitable accommodation to make it agreeable to the Nobility and Gentry who continually resort to it. The Card Room over the Library is 45 feet long, 23 feet wide and 16 feet high and is very handsomely furnished. It may not be presumptuous to say that it deserves to be ranked among the first Libraries in the Kingdom". As well as Harvey's Assembly Rooms there was the Royal Theatre as well as Circulating Libraries and Toyshops where visitors could amuse themselves and spend their money.
		Perhaps the major event that was to fundamentally improve the prosperity of Weymouth and Melcome Regis took place in 1771. Andrew Sproule, a business man from Bath, leased some of the empty waste ground to the north of old Melcome from the Corporation. He proceeded to construct a fine Hotel and Assembly Rooms that lasted until 1893 when it was replaced by the present day ornate twin-towered Royal Hotel, built in 1897. The isolated location of Sproule's Hotel looked out across the wide expanse of Weymouth Bay but this did not last very long, for it proved to be just the start of a major building programme in Weymouth (strictly speaking Melcome Regis) that was to last from 1771 to 1855 and resulted in the complete development of the seafront. An integral part of this development included the construction of a pleasant walking area between the houses and the sands - the beginning of the modern Esplanade.
The first proprietor of Sproule’s new hotel was a Mr. Stacie and it became known as Stacie’s Hotel and Assembly Rooms (see opposite). Old photographs and drawings show that it was bow windowed, with dining rooms, parlours, and bedrooms and a Long Room measuring 70 feet by 40 feet. It was completed by a coffee room, a billiard room, card room and shops, with coach house and stabling for 60 horses at the rear. When King George III took a liking to Weymouth and decided to spend his summers in the town, many of the splendid social events held during his visits took place in Stacies Assembly Rooms. The opening of the new Assembly Rooms meant that the original ones on the old Weymouth side of the Harbour became redundant and they were closed - and ever since they have been referred to as the "Old Rooms". In 1892 Stacie’s was pulled down and in 1897 it was replaced by the present dominating Royal Hotel and the adjacent Royal Arcade. The Royal Hotel was thus built towards the end of the Victorian period and is therefore well outside of the scope of this story. However, its architect, Law, did include a touch of opulence and grandeur in order to compensate for the somewhat austere dignity of the earlier Georgian terracing. Its twin towers still provide a strong focal point at the centre of the sweep of terraced buildings along the Esplanade".
In 1758 Ralph Allen, an extremely wealthy gentleman from Bath with a house on the harbour waterfront of old Weymouth, had entertained the young Duke of York in the town and in 1771 the Duke of Gloucester also came for a stay. He was so impressed by the seawaters and the beautiful surroundings that he decided to visit regularly and in 1780 he arranged for the building of the Gloucester Lodge - nowadays incorporated into the present-day Gloucester Buildings. The Lodge was built on the waste ground between Stacie's and the precincts of old Melcome, with direct views across the Bay. The architect is not known.
		The Duke of Gloucester's brother, King George III, first came to Weymouth in 1789, after a bout of illness, to stay at the modest Gloucester Lodge and try out the sea water treatment - which, by all accounts was an heroic practise. As well as dipping in the sea, patients also drank the salty water. It was also in 1789 that a local architect James Hamilton was involved in building four terraced houses adjacent to Gloucester Lodge - known as Gloucester Row Nos. 1 to 4. These may well have been Hamilton's first serious architectural commission on the seafront and he went on to play a major role in the design of much of Weymouth’s present-day Georgian heritage. In 1801 the King purchased the Gloucester Lodge from his brother, as well as three of the four adjacent houses in Gloucester Row. The fashionable Royal Court and its courtiers followed the King to Weymouth and the town prospered. Public buildings such as Stacie's and Harvey's Assembly Rooms and the Royal Theatre became a hive of activity and the Esplanade (or Promenade) was gradually extended in length to provide a pleasant seaside walk. The greatest difficulty confronting the town was the provision of good accommodation for visitors and contemporary writers record that when the King was in town gentlemen sometimes had to sleep in their carriages - and even in bathing machines!
To satisfy this demand for accommodation the Corporation were more than happy to divide the waste-land along the sea front into plots, which were then leased at low ground rents to speculative developers. This was done to encourage the lessees to build, at his or her own expense, a house or a number of houses of substantial character that could be rented out to provide a reasonable return on their investment. Typical leases would be for 99 years or even longer. The good quality buildings that were to be built had to be suitable not only for seasonal visitors but also for the increasing number of people wishing to live permanently in the Town. At the end of the lease the house became the property of the ground landlord i.e. the Corporation. The records suggest that plans for complete terraces of houses and associated roads were first drawn up by speculative developers and then submitted for approval by the Corporation. James Hamilton, along with other local partners, certainly purchased the lease of the land and then designed and oversaw the building of the elegant if austere Royal Crescent. Although the Corporation would approve the plans for a complete terrace, the houses were not necessarily all built at once by the same builder. Construction of a terrace was often spread over many years. This is the reason why the present day Weymouth and Portland Borough Council still owns so many of the properties along the Esplanade - because some 200 years ago the Corporation used a leasehold system for the sale of the original building plots along the seafront. Subsequently many of the Georgian buildings have eventually reverted back to the ownership of the Borough.