Weymouth: the Gloucester Street heads

During my most recent visit to Weymouth, in September, I spent an hour or two wandering around the streets of the old town, streets full of characterful buildings, interesting signs and plaques, notable snippets of architectural adornment. One such thoroughfare is Gloucester Street, where I took the photographs shown here. 

By sheer coincidence, the guesthouse where I stay when I visit Weymouth, the excellent Gresham (highly recommended if you’re ever in the area – I am not paid to say that; I’m simply going by my experience of the friendly helpful hosts, the comfortable well-appointed rooms, the delicious breakfasts) subsequently posted about Gloucester Street on social media:

Have you ever noticed the faces on the buildings in Gloucester Street?
We recently heard a fascinating bit of Weymouth folklore about them.
The story goes that they date back to Weymouth’s royal days, when runners working for the King were sent around town with messages and errands. As some couldn’t read, they were supposedly directed to the right house by the face carved outside it.
Great story, isn’t it?
There’s just one problem… we’re not convinced it’s true.
We’ve been doing a little digging and, so far, the dates don’t quite seem to add up. George III’s famous visits to Weymouth were at the end of the 1700s and beginning of the 1800s, while the buildings with these particular faces appear to have come later.

 
The sculpted, and sometimes painted, heads on the Gloucester Street houses had also captured my attention, and I took the photos shown below of some, though not all of them. 

I love the idea of the folklore related by folks at The Gresham but a little online research appeared to confirm what they wrote about these houses being constructed after the years that King George III made his regular visits to Weymouth. The British History Online website reports as follows **:

The area W. of Gloucester Row was developed by speculative builders from c. 1830; the houses were more simply designed and cheaply constructed than the monumental terraces facing the bay and were intended for occupation by a lower social class. The streets in which the early stages of this development, prior to 1850, are seen are Bath Street, Gloucester Street, Park Street and Wesley Street. The houses (Plate 185) are very similar to one another in character; they are mostly of two storeys and attics with rendered brick walls and slated roofs, of one room in width and with doorways under semi-circular or segmental-arched heads. All except Monument (257) have bow windows to the first floor with double-hung sashes and moulded or dentil cornices. 

So, what is the story behind the intriguing sculpted heads? I still don’t know. But if I, or the folks at The Gresham, find out more, I’ll be sure to update this blog. 

** ‘Weymouth', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 2, South east (London, 1970), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/dorset/vol2/pp330-374 [accessed 18 October 2026].

Weymouth: George III’s bathing machine

My bus to Portland – that’s it in the background – isn’t due to depart for another ten minutes and the scene is washed in a delicate early morning glow so I pop across the road to take some photos. (The early morning also had the advantage of relative peace, quiet and empty streets compared to the constant flow of pedestrian and vehicular traffic that would soon flood the streets and pavements.) 

The subject of my camera is the replica, installed in 2012 to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, of the bathing machine used by her great-great-great-great grandfather King George III. An article in the Dorset Echo, dated 6 April 2021, includes a wonderful photo, taken in 1910, of the original machine on which the replica is based. 

George III first went bathing in his octagonal machine at Weymouth in July 1789, believing a dip in the sea would help him recuperate from illness. (Much has been written about ‘mad’ King George and the frequent bouts of illness that dogged his 60-year reign; a BBC website article notes that researchers now believe he was suffering from a mental illness like bipolar disorder, rather than the disease porphyria.) George continued to visit Weymouth for his summertime dips almost every year until 1802, though there seems to be some doubt as to whether this original machine continued in use. According to a blog on the Dorset Ancestors website that original bathing machine was replaced just two years later, in 1791, by a ‘larger and more extravagantly fitted-out machine’, and an article in Country Life notes that ‘the royal machine remained in regular use by members of the bathing public until 1914’; one assumes the King and the bathing public would not be using the same bathing machine. 

Much has been written about bathing machines and the bathing huts that superseded them – that Country Life article provides a good summary. They developed as a means of protecting the modesty of the person going bathing. In George’s case, there is some dispute about whether he changed into his bathing costume or stripped naked for this bathing, but the removal or change of clothing would take place within the hut as it was being drawn by a horse into the water. The King would then be assisted in his bathing by two fully clothed female ‘dippers’, before returning to his machine to dry off and put his royal robes back on. A rather wonderful mural depicting this scene is displayed on the side of the Seascape Café in Weymouth's Greenhill Gardens.

Weymouth: Queen Victoria Statue

When I’m visiting the Dorset seaside town of Weymouth, I often walk past this statue of Queen Victoria as it is on the route from my guesthouse to the RSPB Lodmoor Nature Reserve, where I like to go birding almost every day. 

This morning, as I returned from my circuit of Lodmoor, I finally made time to take some photos of the statue. 

It is a grade II listed building / monument that was erected in 1902, in commemoration of Queen Victoria, who had died in January of the previous year.

The Historic England listing describes the monument as being approximately 5 metres high, with a life-size – she was around 151cm tall – bronze statue of the queen set on a 2-metre-square podium made of Portland stone. 

The queen faces south along the Esplanade, with her back to Weymouth’s Church of St John.

The plaque on the podium beneath her on this side reads ‘VICTORIA. D.G. BRITANNIAR (sic) REGINA. FID DEF INDIAE IMP’.

 

As you can hopefully see from my photos, the bronze has survived the intervening years well and looks to be in excellent condition. The stone, and its inscribed plaques, however, are rather weathered, presumably because the monument is quite close to the sea and must often be blasted by inclement weather, particularly during the winter months. 

The inscription on the panel on the back / north side reads:
'This memorial erected by public subscription was unveiled by H. R. H.  Princess Beatrice (Princess Henry of Battenberg) October 20th 1902.
John Bragg - Mayor
Richard Nicholas Howard - Town Clerk.' 

On the east side of the podium the carving represents the Arms of the Borough of Melcombe Regis (shown above), and the western side bears the Royal Arms (below). 

The Historic England listing makes no mention of my favourite part of the statue, the four bronze dolphins, one set at each corner. 

The presence of dolphins in British public art like this monument is usually assumed to represent Britain’s position as a dominant force in global sea power.