Thursday, September 29, 1831 Travel Journal

1831

September

Thursday 29

Out at 10 35/.. to the sea – Old Harry and Bourne Bottom East – Too hazy, or could see Christchurch Tower – Long sweep of Christchurch Cliffs to Lymington – Too hazy to distinguish Isle of Wight.  West is Peverel peak – Could not see St. Albans – Pretty little bay or rather creek?

Boats fetching stone from under the cliffs west – Talking to the artillery man, and then to old man who told me of the quarries of Tilly Whim not worked now and of Crown down the hill above the town west –

Went down one of the deepest (up and down in 1/4 hour ), 110 feet deep down, very steep inclined plane –

The men just gone to dinner – About 1/2 dozen?  Can earn 12/. a week, and a boy about 4/. or 5/. or 6/., cela depend –

Scrambled down the very bad, dirty, slippery steps leaning on a lad’s shoulder, candles lighted, and went to the end of the shaft they were working –

The stratum of stone about  2 1/2 feet thick imbedded in a sort of clay, of which I could learn no other name than ceiling –

Could not stand upright – Shaft about 4 feet high –

Stones drawn up in sledges by a horse and windlass – Great deal used to go to London but they set it up so high, that they have almost lost the market and Yorkshire supplies the greatest quantity now –

The fence walls here are built very often the stones en pente –

Comfortable enough last night at my little Inn – The town full – Several neat lodging houses – but one day to wander about for sea views and the quarries enough –

The isle of Wight must be best seen in an evening – The wind being from the west could not see it this morning –

Off from Swanage at 11 50/..At Langton village at 12 20/.. New church body to the old tower.  Plain wild stone-walled country –

Stone quarries some distance beyond here all along – Seeing the quarry did me good – The seeing written on my sitting room window Hic et ubique viator infelix (ici et partout voyageur malheureux) had made me think of my loneliness and be almost infelix) –

Sight land but ploughing with 4 horses and a lad to drive.

Now at 12 3/4, 7 miles from Wareham, Corfe castle and the  town and church at its foot en face backed by moory heathery plain with the sea, Wareham Channel just coming up in the distance, and green enclosed plain and moor in front – Singular and fine –

Kingston at 12 50/.. where Lady Elder was buried Lord Elder’s near –

Stop at Corfe Castle at 1 1/4.  Raining and had been for 1/4 hour or 10 minutes – Saw the castle that Lady Bankes defended against Cromwell – Bones of 24 persons found in the dungeon but Lady Bankes had the castle 50 years and no executions in her time – Undermined by Cromwell after he took it –

Off from there at 1 55/.. over the hills – Good 7 miles, fine view of pool [Poole] harbour – and Swanage and great Orne’s Head and to Lulworth Castle, Bonns folly (a sort of gateway on the hill above his house) 1/2 way –

Lulworth stands finely among some good forest timber – little or no fir –

A solid square of perhaps 15 yards (3 stories on a projecting basement of one story) with large round towers,  very prominent – mere tangents – at each corner.  Bedrooms in the towers –

No very good front entrance –

Billiard room on the left, then black and white square marble paved salon,  then dining room – Back front opens on the stair case – Drawing room etc. on the 2nd story –

2 Ionic pillars (bad taste) and cornice over the front entrance door – and a few statues of muses and saints and heroes –

All plain oblong windows, single or double – No attempt at Gothic or castle style, save in the round towers and battlements –

The basement story forms a broadish balcony 3 or 4 yards broad all round the castle –

Has not been furnished since the time of the father or grandfather of the present possessor – 2 of his sisters nuns near Clifton near Bristol –

The French royal family rented it – much liked – very good to the poor – Made handsome presents to all the young Welds and to everyone who served them, over and above the wages –

Mr. Weld and his family just gone to his seat at Pilesworth near Lymington –

Castle built 180 years ago – Something of this sort might do for Shibden –

Sir Robert Peel rented it some years ago, as did also the Duke of Gloucester –

At the castle at 4 1/4 in 2 20/.. hours – 25 minutes there, then a minute or 2 at the little Inn in the very small village for Cameron to get something to drink, and from there to Wareham, 6 1/2 miles good in 1 40/.. hour from 5 to 6 40/.. –

Tea at 7 – Dawdled over it 3/4 hour, then wrote out the last page and so far of this, and settled accounts of the day till 8 1/4 –

Margin notes:

Curious appearance of the cliffs west, (Old Harry is all chalk) stone in strata amid clay – The tide in –

St. Adhelms race – too hazy or might have seen Christchurch Tower and Spithead – Merely a peep of the fauteuil of the Isle of Wight – and no distinguishing Isle of Portland – Great Orne’s Head very like Old Harry near Swanage –

Corfe castle see all the way from Kingston –

If Mr. William Bankes had stood for the County would have got it – Lord Shaftesbury against Mr. Ponsonby.

WYAS Finding Numbers,  SH:7/ML/TR/11/0011 and SH/ML/TR/11/0012