weston-super-mare has frequently been styled the “western brighton.” it matters little or nothing to those who invent these impossible parallels that the places thus compared with one another have nothing in common; and certainly weston (for few there be who give it the longer name) is as little like brighton as any place well can be. weston fringes the bold curve of the shallow and sandy weston or uphill bay, sandy inshore: a mile-broad expanse of mud at low water. brighton is built on a straight coastline, part of the town standing on the clifftops of kemp town, and the narrow beach is exclusively shingle. at the back of brighton run the treeless chalk hills of the south downs; behind weston stretch the levels that extend further inland as far as sedgemoor. brighton took its rise in the middle georgian period, about 1780; weston remained an insignificant village until the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
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 meditate 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 quaint. the old county historians have little to say of weston, and what they have to remark is concerned only with the descent of the manor.
even so comparatively recently as 1824—five years, it will be noted, later than mrs. piozzi’s raptures—weston remained a very small place, as shown in an old engraving 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 pensive 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 sparse settlement on a desolate shore, does not tally 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 mansions; but notwithstanding this, its general appearance is little inviting to the stranger, especially in gloomy weather, or when the ebb of the spring tides leaves open large tracts 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 wading with nets, and the villagers enjoying the exhilarating breeze after the fatigues 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 favourable 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 recollect them perfectly well.
the beginning of the end of this old-time attitude of aloofness 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 picturesque 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 passionate opposition 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 costly one; the branch tramway laid down from the main line, with railway carriages dragged slowly into the place, to a shed situated 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 erected 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 extravagant 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 repelling, the visitor. nay, 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 invalids.
it has long been the fashion in many quarters to depreciate 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 delightful 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 quarried 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 volcanic 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 caters of necessity for the crowd, for the crowd is at its very threshold. half an hour’s railway journey from 74bristol, and a mere ten miles’ steamer voyage from cardiff and other populous 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 besieged 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 densely crowded as any lover of humanity in masses could reasonably desire, and the place is as fully furnished with strictly unintellectual amusements as the average lower middle-class holiday-maker could hope for, outside blackpool and yarmouth. here is a pier, the “grand pier” it is called, thrusting forth 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 lengthy 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 prodigious affair, which entirely eclipses the old birnbeck pier under anchor head: really a pier-like bridge connecting the rocky isle 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 abounds with every kind of amusement, except the intellectual variety: water-chutes, switchback railways, try-your-weight and try-your-strength machines, and battalions of other penny-in-the-slot mechanisms; and, above all, a damned something that may be espied 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 plunged 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 varied delights the presence of hundreds of itinerant vendors on parade and sands, and barrows innumerable in the busy streets; and throw in a very plentiful supply of teashops, restaurants, and dining-rooms in the centre of the town, whose proprietors 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 grove park, with its mansion, 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
as to bring the eldest hither,
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 everlasting gain.
