Wyke is the mother church of Weymouth and is a
fine Perpendicular structure in a magnificent position. Its list of
rectors starts in 1302, so that the church must be on the site of an
earlier building. The churchyard is the resting place of a large
number of shipwrecked sailors who have met their death in the dread
"Deadman's Bay," as this end of the great West Bay is termed.
The road into Portland is across a bridge built in 1839, the first to
connect the island-peninsula with the mainland. Then follows a long
two miles of monotony along the eastern end of Chesil Beach, and the
most ardent pedestrian will prefer to take to the railway at least as
far as Portland station if not to the terminus at Easton. The lonely
stretch of West Bay, in sharp contrast to the animation of the Roads,
cannot be seen unless the high bank of shingle on the right is
ascended. Portland Castle is on the nearest point of the island to the
mainland. This also was built by Henry VIII and is in good repair and
inhabited by one of the officers of the garrison.
The road ascends to Fortune's Well, as uninteresting a "capital" as
could well be imagined and for the sheer ugliness of its buildings and
church probably unsurpassed.
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