Description
Wyke Regis, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands on an eminence, adjacent to the coast, 2 miles WSW of Weymouth station on the G W.R., and commands a fine view of Portland Island and Bay. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Weymonth. The parish is a liberty called Wyke Regis and Elwell. A large portion of the parish is called Westham, and is a suburb of Weymouth, with which it was incorporated in 1895. Population, about 1600; of the ecclesiastical parish, 2773. There is a parish council consisting of fifteen members. Belfield House, Belfield Park, and Wyke House are the chief residences. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £320 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Oxford. The church is the mother church of Weymouth, serves as a landmark to mariners, is of the 15th century, and has a peal of eight bells. An hospital was erected in 1880-81 in connection with the Weymouth Port sanitary authority, which will hold fifty patients. Large torpedo works, erected in 1891, are situated in the parish. A pier, said to be the second longest in England, is employed in the testing of the torpedoes.
Parish Church
The church of All Saints is a building of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, south porch, and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing a clock and 8 bells, hung in 1891 at a cost of £700: the tower, which is 261 feet above sea level, serves as a landmark to vessels passing up and down the English Channel; in the chancel are two stained windows, presented by R. H. Swaffield esq. and Mrs. Munro; another window was added in 1885 by Capt. Pretor, in memory of his father; and in 1891 others were presented by Mrs. Edward Otway, in memory of her husband, and by Lady Otway, in memory of her son; the church contains some monuments and tablets, and in the graveyard are several stones bearing inscriptions to persons shipwrecked on this coast: the church affords 500 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1676.
