While it is certainly a mistaken compliment to compare the situation of Weston with that of Brighton, it is, on the other hand, unfair to 68Brighton to pretend that, as a town, Weston approaches it, for size or splendour. But in every respect the places are so wholly dissimilar that it would be the worst of mistakes to play the one off against the other.
One of the very earliest discoverers of Weston was Mrs. Piozzi, the Mrs. Thrale of earlier years, friend of Dr. Johnson. Writing hence in 1819, she mentions the fine qualities of the air: “The breezes here are most salubrious: no land nearer than North America when we look down the Channel; and ’tis said that Sebastian Cabot used to stand where I now sit, and meditate4 his future discoveries of Newfoundland.”
The reference to “no land nearer than North America,” with the cautious proviso, “when we look down the Channel,” strikes the modern observer, who in fine weather distinctly sees the busy towns of the South Wales coast and the smoke-wreaths of its factory chimneys, not more than ten miles distant, as particularly quaint5. The old county historians have little to say of Weston, and what they have to remark is concerned only with the descent of the manor6.
Even so comparatively recently as 1824—five years, it will be noted7, later than Mrs. Piozzi’s raptures—Weston remained a very small place, as shown in an old engraving8 published at the time in Rutter’s “Westonian Guide.” It consisted, it would appear, of the parish church of St. John, just rebuilt, and some thirty houses. A few trees, of a distinctly Noah’s Ark type, 69looked upon the sands, occupied by two bathing-machines, a shed, a horse and cart, and twelve widely distributed people of uncertain but pensive9 character. Such was the old inheritance of the Pigott and Smyth-Pigott family, who have owned the manor of Weston, with much else in the neighbourhood, since 1696.
But the evidence afforded by the frontispiece to “Rutter’s Guide,” which shows Weston like some sparse10 settlement on a desolate11 shore, does not tally12 with the statements contained in the booklet itself, in whose pages we read:
“The fishermen’s huts have almost disappeared and the town now contains about two hundred and fifty houses; a large portion of which are respectable residences,[2] and even some elegant mansions14; but notwithstanding this, its general appearance is little inviting15 to the stranger, especially in gloomy weather, or when the ebb16 of the spring tides leaves open large tracts17 of beach. But on a fine summer evening, when the tide is in, nothing can be more beautiful than the scene which it presents: numerous groups walking on its smooth and extensive sands, intermingled with a variety of carriages, horses, fishermen wading18 with nets, and the villagers enjoying the exhilarating breeze after the fatigues19 of the day.”
2. This is good hearing.
The seaside was at that time in process of being discovered. At innumerable spots around our coasts fisher villages were then being transformed into elegant resorts, which were saved 70from becoming vulgar by the sufficient facts that the working classes could not afford holidays, and that, if they could, the means of transport were lacking. When tedious and expensive coach journeys were the only methods of being conveyed, it is obvious that wage-earners could spare neither the time nor the money for what would have been to them, under the most favourable20 circumstances, an enterprise. But those classes were quite content to do without the week’s or fortnight’s holiday at the seaside which appears nowadays to be regarded as the birthright of most men, women, and children. They were not then educated up to holidays, and were content to work week in and week out through the year, never questioning the scheme of things that gave to the few that leisure they themselves could never enjoy.
It is a little difficult nowadays to realise the exclusive Weston that was; although, to be sure, those days when it still posed as exclusive are not so far distant but that many old people in the town can recollect21 them perfectly22 well.
The beginning of the end of this old-time attitude of aloofness23 may be dated from 1841, when the Bristol and Exeter Railway that was—the Great Western that is—was opened to Worle, in continuation of the line from Paddington to Bristol; being completed the whole way to Exeter in 1844.
The early history of railways is not yet ancient history, but it is already old enough to be obscured 71and made romantic by legends, some true, others coloured with that passion for the picturesque24 which transfigures history everywhere. Stories are told, as they are told everywhere, with a great deal of truth in them, of local objections to the railway. We hear of the passionate25 opposition26 offered by the Smyth-Pigotts and by the inhabitants of Weston to a proposal to run the main line near the town; with the result that it was constructed no closer than a mile away inland. The two thousand inhabitants who then constituted the town of Weston shortsightedly rejoiced at this victory, which was very speedily found to be a costly27 one; the branch tramway laid down from the main line, with railway carriages dragged slowly into the place, to a shed situated28 in the rear of the present Town Hall, proving an undignified entrance that not many visitors cared to experience twice. But for ten years this remained the way into the town by rail. A proper branch line was afterwards built from Worle, but still Weston station remained a terminus, until the new loop line was made, in 1884, coming through the town and rejoining the main at Uphill and Bleadon station.
Another local railway legend, of some interest, relates to a forlorn platform that no living person ever saw put to any manner of use. It stood some distance to the north side of the existing station for Uphill and Bleadon, and was popularly supposed to be a station erected29 by the 72Company in accordance with the letter (certainly not with the spirit) of an agreement entered into between the Company and a local landowner through whose land the railway had been made, at an extravagant30 cost, in consequence of the high price this freeholder had put upon his holding. He, it appears, finally insisted upon having a station built for his own personal convenience, and the Company agreed. But nothing had been said about trains stopping there, and so no tickets were ever issued to or from this freak building, and no trains ever halted at it.
Nowadays with its twenty-five thousand inhabitants, Weston welcomes, instead of repelling31, the visitor. Nay32, more: it has arrived at that stage of existence to which most other seaside towns have come, and lives for and on visitors, and when the summer season is over ceases to be its characteristic self; always remembering that in winter its climate is mild and inviting to invalids33.
It has long been the fashion in many quarters to depreciate34 Weston-super-Mare, and to style it “Weston-super-Mud.” Mud there is in plenty, far out in this shallow bay, and it is exposed for a great distance at the ebb, but it never intermingles with the fine broad yellow sands that form a paradise for children along the entire two miles’ sweep of the bay, from Anchor Head to Uphill, and make a fine track for the donkey rides that are so great a feature of the children’s 73holidays here. The scenery surrounding Weston is delightful35 and singularly romantic. Boldly placed in mid-Channel are those twin, but strongly dissimilar islets, the Steep Holm and Flat Holm, the last-named provided with a prominent white lighthouse, and both in these latter days the site of massive forts presenting an embattled front to any possible hostile voyage up the Severn Sea. These islets are outlying fragments of the Mendip range of hills, which ends south of the town in the quarried37 hills of Bleadon and Uphill, and in the almost islanded gigantic bulk of Brean Down. Overhanging the town on the north is that other outlier of the Mendips, Worle Hill. In every direction, therefore, we find hills peaking up with a suddenness and an outline almost volcanic38 in appearance. The air, too, of Weston is brisk and enjoyable; and if there be indeed nothing of interest in the town itself, modern creation as it is, the same criticism is applicable to many another seaside resort. The stranger, therefore, who has for many years been familiar with severe and undiscriminating criticisms of Weston finds it, when at last fate brings him hither, a very much more likeable place than he had dared hope.
It must, however, be said that Weston is not select. It is popular, in the sense that Yarmouth, Blackpool, and Southport (to name none others) are popular. It caters39 of necessity for the crowd, for the crowd is at its very threshold. Half an hour’s railway journey from 74Bristol, and a mere40 ten miles’ steamer voyage from Cardiff and other populous41 Welsh ports, would render useless any attempts that might be made to keep Weston as a preserve for the comparatively few rich, leisured, and cultured persons who might give its Parade a better tone, but certainly would not do the shopkeeping class much good. And to do the people and the local authorities of Weston the merest justice, they make no such attempts, foredoomed to failure as they would be. I do not know what the motto of Weston-super-Mare may be, nor even indeed if it has one. If not already furnished in this respect, it might well be “Let ’em all come.” And they do already come in very considerable numbers. But this, it should be said, is not to pretend that Weston is either so large, or so besieged42 with immense crowds of visitors, as Blackpool and the other popular resorts already mentioned. Still the streets, the long curving Parade, and the sands are in July, August, and September as densely43 crowded as any lover of humanity in masses could reasonably desire, and the place is as fully44 furnished with strictly45 unintellectual amusements as the average lower middle-class holiday-maker could hope for, outside Blackpool and Yarmouth. Here is a pier46, the “Grand Pier” it is called, thrusting forth47 a long arm from the centre of the Parade into the shallow waters of the bay, with a huge concert pavilion midway, and a further lengthy48 arm going on and on until it rivals Southend pier 75itself, with a total length of 6,600 feet, or something like a mile and a quarter; the intention being to enable the excursion steamers to touch at the pier-head. An electric railway runs the length of this prodigious49 affair, which entirely50 eclipses the old Birnbeck Pier under Anchor Head: really a pier-like bridge connecting the rocky isle36 of Birnbeck with the mainland. From the isle itself three pier-arms project in different directions, and to these the excursion steamers from Bristol, Cardiff and other ports have hitherto come. Such dreams of delight await the incoming visitors on this siren isle that many day-excursionists to Weston proceed no farther. The place abounds51 with every kind of amusement, except the intellectual variety: water-chutes, switchback railways, try-your-weight and try-your-strength machines, and battalions52 of other penny-in-the-slot mechanisms53; and, above all, a damned something that may be espied54 from the shore, like a huge giant’s-stride pole with baskets whizzing in dizzy fashion around it; the said baskets being filled with people who have paid a penny each for the privilege of being given a sensation which must be a colourable imitation of sea-sickness. The channel called the Stepway, which separates Birnbeck from Anchor Head at high tide, is readily crossed at low water; but the place has its hidden dangers, in a very swift current that sweeps suddenly through when the tide again begins to flow; as may be seen by personal observation, and in the evidence offered by 76a tablet in Clevedon church, which records the deaths in 1819 by drowning of Abraham and Charles Elton, two sons of Sir Abraham Elton, who at the ages of thirteen and fourteen were thus cut off: “In crossing from Bearnbeck Isle, at Weston-super-Mare, the younger became involved in the tide, when the elder plunged55 to his rescue. The flood was stronger than their strength, though not their love, and as ‘they were lovely and pleasant in their lives,’ so ‘in their death they were not divided.’”
Midway between Birnbeck and the Grand Pier is a projecting rock, once an island called Knightstone, now connected with the shore and made the site of the Knightstone Pavilion and Baths.
Add to these varied56 delights the presence of hundreds of itinerant57 vendors58 on Parade and sands, and barrows innumerable in the busy streets; and throw in a very plentiful59 supply of teashops, restaurants, and dining-rooms in the centre of the town, whose proprietors60 or their agents stand on the pavement and shout for custom, and you will have a very fair notion of what Weston is like. To these items, however, must be added Grove61 Park, with its mansion13, the old manor-house of the Smyth-Pigotts, and, the Clarence Park, and one other. Finally, conceive that indispensable feature of a modern watering-place, an electric tramway, and there you have Weston-super-Mare.
Everything is very new, and probably the 77one ancient object is the chancel of the parish church, which seems to have escaped rebuilding, but is not, at any rate, of much interest. In the church is the following curious epitaph:
Of two brothers born together,
Cruel death was so unkind
And the younger leave behind.
May George live long,
Edgar dy’d young,
For born he was
To Master Sam Willan, Rectour
of this place, and Jane his wife,
Sep. 5, 1680, and buryed Feb.
the eleventh, 1686. The 9th
did put an end to all his pain,
And sent him into everlasting63 gain.
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1
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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shingle
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| n.木瓦板；小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌)；v.用木瓦板盖（屋顶）；把（女子头发）剪短 | |
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3
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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4
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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5
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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7
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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8
engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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10
sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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11
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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12
tally
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| n.计数器，记分，一致，测量；vt.计算，记录，使一致；vi.计算，记分，一致 | |
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13
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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14
mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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15
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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16
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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18
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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19
fatigues
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| n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 )；杂役；厌倦；（士兵穿的）工作服 | |
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20
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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21
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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22
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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23
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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24
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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25
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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26
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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27
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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28
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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29
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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30
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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31
repelling
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| v.击退( repel的现在分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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32
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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33
invalids
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| 病人，残疾者( invalid的名词复数 ) | |
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34
depreciate
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| v.降价，贬值，折旧 | |
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35
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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36
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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37
quarried
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| v.从采石场采得( quarry的过去式和过去分词 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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38
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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39
caters
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| 提供饮食及服务( cater的第三人称单数 )； 满足需要，适合 | |
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40
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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41
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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42
besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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44
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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45
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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46
pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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47
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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48
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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49
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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50
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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51
abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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52
battalions
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| n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍 | |
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53
mechanisms
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| n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用 | |
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54
espied
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| v.看到( espy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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56
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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57
itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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58
vendors
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| n.摊贩( vendor的名词复数 )；小贩；（房屋等的）卖主；卖方 | |
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59
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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60
proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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61
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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62
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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63
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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