The Penny Magazine

The Penny Magazine
of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge

Sunday in the Isle of Portland

On the only Sunday which I spent in the isle, I had scarcely finished a late breakfast when the landlord of the 'Portland Arms' sent to ask if I was ready for church, and whether I would 'honour him' by taking a seat in the family pew. This request, so unusual in an innkeeper, was gladly accepted, and in a few minutes I was climbing Fortune's Well Hill in his company, on our way to St. George's church, two miles off, and the only one in the island. At this place, the morning service commences at half-past ten. At ten precisely, the sexton takes his post at the belfry window, and with a telescope keeps a sharp look-out for the clergyman, who lives at some distance. As soon as he appears in sight the watchman descends, and proceeds to spread the intelligence by tolling a large bell. Previously to this, the male worshippers arrive, and spend their time in loitering about the grave-stones, but the moment the tolling of the bell commences, a general bustle ensues; some make their way into the church, but the greater part take their stand at the door, or line the pathway, with a view of bowing to the clergyman as he passes. The women, meanwhile, obey the summons, and hastening to the church arrive just in time to pay their courtesies to the preacher, who, with many kind acknowledgements of their respect, passes on to the discharge of his duties. The church is a plain structure, built in a spurious Grecian style; it was consecrated on the 29^th July, 1766. George II gave ,300 towards its erection, and George III ,100 towards its repairs. The interior is spacious, and divided into roomy and very high-backed pews, on which the peculiar custom prevails of painting in conspicuous letters the names of the persons renting them and the number of the seats held:- thus, 'ZECHARIAH WHITE, TWO PLACES' 'ABRAHAM WINTER (my landlord), SIX PLACES'. The panels of the galleries were painted with texts of Scripture. The choral department was under the control of an ill-toned organ, assisted by a clarinet and violoncello. When the people had assembled, the simplicity of their character was curiously manifested in the ease with which each one took the most convenient posture.

The service commenced by a hymn from forty girls, educated in the Church Sunday-school.

The prayers followed. The responses were singularly dissonant - the prolonged sound of some two or three hundred bass voices, in which every word was solidly distinguished, for a moment startled my notions of propriety; I had forgotten my locality.

Before service, the following verses were sung with a hoarse but eloquent emphasis, which taken in connection with the disasters peculiar to the quarrymen's trade, was to my mind singularly touching and impressive:-

"From common accidents of life,
His care shall guard thee still;
From the blind strokes of chance, and foes
That lie in wait to kill."

"At home, abroad, in peace, in war,
Thy God shall thee defend;
Conduct thee, through life's pilgrimage,
Safe to thy journey's end."

After the sermon a collection was made to defray the expenses of lighting the church on winter nights; - the money was taken, not in a plate, but in a Bandana handkerchief, laid loosely over the opening of a hat.

On the close of the service, I took a walk over the island, The people were everywhere cleanly, and the females even elegantly clad. The latter wear ample gowns; the hair, without curls, simply parted over the forehead and tied up behind; and to protect the back of the neck from sun or rain, a large and variously ornamented 'curtain' descends from the hinder part of the bonnet. The intervals of worship are spent in conversation; and if the day be fine, knots, of from ten to twenty may be seen on the outskirts of the villages, seated or stretched on the ground, in a happy state of rest and sociality. The women keep house; and the children are sent to Sunday-schools, of which there are several. No games or drinking-bouts 'fright the isle from its propriety', but a cheerful and intelligent quietude seems to reign.

There are two large and well-attended chapels at Chiswell and Fortune's Well; and many classes for religious instruction in private houses in other parts of the island. At Easton, in the centre of the island, stand the ruins of what is called the Vicar's House. The inhabitants know little about it, but have a tradition that it was a fine place, demolished in the civil wars^[i]. It was probably a monastic establishment.

The walk over the top of the island will introduce the visitor to five of its seven villages; and as they are the only peculiar objects which remain to be described, I shall with them bring my week in Portland to a close. It is hardly possible for human habitations to present, collectively, a more dreary and unsocial aspect than a Portland village. The houses of one of these townships vary from one to two hundred in number, and stand on each side of a wide, grass-grown road, full of ruts and covered with scattered stones. Not a tree or bush is to be seen; no rural sound is to be heard; the only objects before the traveller are monotonous piles of ragged stone walls, dust heaps, and bare rocks. There is, however, much that is individually interesting in these places. The houses are built to endure the local vicissitudes of the climate, and to meet the peculiar wants of the inhabitants, and are well contrived for those purposes. The walls are built of large blocks of the rougher sorts of stone, the chimneys of brick, and the roofs of broad thin slabs of stone, but sometimes of slate or tile, in which cases, to protect the roof from being lifted by the wind, the edges are bound with a treble row of stone slabs. The form of the roof is usually that of a gable, with a considerable pitch; the doors have those comfortable appendages which it is to be regretted are now totally out of fashion in poor men=s houses - deep and well-seated porches, with a square of angular tops; these, together with the window bars and borders, are kept neatly white-washed, and give favourable testimony to the cleanliness of the inhabitants. Internally, the smaller houses are divided into four rooms, lined throughout with unpainted wood, and furnished with roomy cupboards, and are dry, warm, and free from vermin. The rent varies £3 to £5 per annum. In front of each house stands a hen-coop built of ponderous stone blocks, a dust-hole of the same huge materials, and a cistern for rain-water, cut out of a solid block of compact freestone as large as the Belzoni sarcophagus, and requiring almost as much labour for its excavation. Indeed, the size of the masses of stone commonly used in the construction of walls, door-jambs, gate-posts, etc., fills the mind of the stranger with astonishment. I measured one used in building a hedgewall, and found it 7 feet by 5, with a proportionate thickness.

1. The Great Fire of London occurred on 2-6 Sep 1666 after a drought beginning 27 June

2. Castle of Tillietudlem refers to Craignethan Castle in Scotland, situated on the Nethan about one mile from its junction with the Clyde River. The last great private castle of high defensive capability to be built in Scotland, it was erected by Sir James Hamilton of Finnart in 1530. In 1580, Craignethan=s history as a fortification had ended barely 50 years after being built. The ruined castle then unexpectedly gained new fame and fortune through the writings of Sir Walter Scott, who visited the castle in 1799. He fell in love with it and in his novel, 'Old Morality', written in 1816, Tillietudlem Castle was widely regarded as being a veiled reference to Craignethan. A nearby station on the local branch line was named Tillietudlem in it's honour.

Source: A set of the Penny Magazine is held by the Humanities Section (Historical Periodicals) of the British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, England NW1 2DB and by the University Library, Cambridge, England

The Penny Magazine was published from 31 Mar 1832 (Vol 1) to 27 Dec 1845 (Vol 14)

There were four woodcut illustrations included in these articles. They are entitled (1) View of Portland from Sandsfoot Castle, (2) Portland Quarry, (3) Western Cliffs, Portland and (4) Chesil Beach, Portland.