Islington or Ilsington? By Cecil Amor
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f course, in Dorset it is Ilsington, whereas Islington is London. However I have frequently made the mistake as I did about 27 years ago, when the Chairwoman (I started to write Chairlady, but thought this could be misread as Charlady) of one of our local groups asked for a visit there. I discovered Ilsington to be near to Puddletown, which Thomas Hardy called “Weatherbury”, near the Valley of the Great Dairies in his novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles. We made a summer afternoon visit, by appointment, to Ilsington House, and discovered a sturdy manor house, once owned by England’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole and then passed to his son Sir George Walpole in 1751. Sir George did not marry. The estate then passed on to Horatio Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford in 1791, also a politician and a writer of gothic novels. When he died in 1797 the manor passed to his cousin, Horatio, Baron Walpole. King George III started visiting Melcombe in 1789, until 1811, staying at Gloucester Lodge which had been built by his brother, the Duke of Gloucester a short time earlier. It has since been converted into an hotel and bar, on the esplanade, with a fine view over the sea front and across the bay. Melcombe and Weymouth were close together and both benefited from the royal patronage and now we tend to think of them as Weymouth. King George is celebrated on the sea front by a statue, together with a bathing machine, which he famously used to be transferred to the waters edge, when he bathed and presumably re-entered to dress in private, not far from Gloucester Lodge. Hardy, in The Trumpet-Major describes how the George III reviewed his troops on the downs, with two Dukes and two generals on horseback, followed by two coaches, drawn by cream-coloured horses. The first coach held the Queen and three princesses and the second brought the two remaining princesses. Hardy writes, in dialect, the comments of the spectators, “There’s King Jarge”, “That’s Queen Sharlett”, “Princess ‘Lizabeth”, “Princesses Sophiar and Meelyer”.
Part of his retinue described was the Kings Equerry, Major General Thomas Garth, who leased Ilsington House and daily rode his horse from there to Gloucester Lodge to join his king. When we made our visit to Ilsington House the guide showed us around the old manor house, with its rich wood panelling to see the paintings of past family residents, the antique furniture and ornaments. We probably had a cream tea, although the memory of that has long gone. Afterwards we were able to walk around the gardens, which matched the splendour of the old building and I have been reminded by a friend who was also visiting, that there were several sculptures made from willow branches. One of these, the largest, was of a “Withie Man” who straddled a path so that one walked between its legs. During the tea our guide told us some of the history of the house and its people. One of the most interesting stories was about Major General Garth, which in retrospect was probably what several people were waiting to hear. He was not a tall man and had a “port wine” birthmark on his face. One has to feel somewhat sorry for King George III, as he suffered from a hereditary disease, Porphyria, which made some refer to him as “mad King George”, and he also had problems abroad. Some of his children misbehaved, in particular the Prince Regent, who became King George IV, but perhaps their father, George III, may have been partly responsible. It has been said that whilst in Weymouth if he had to leave them on royal business, he would lock them inside Gloucester Lodge and forbid them to go out. King George III and his Queen, formerly Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, had fifteen children. Their twelfth child was Princess Sophia Matilda, born on the third of November 1777. She was frequently left alone at Gloucester Lodge with Major General Garth. Despite his being thirty three years older than Princess Sophia, who was described as beautiful, she developed a considerable liking Detail from ‘Royal dipping’ by John Nixon, published © British Museum
