| Bincombe |
| Overlooking Weymouth Bay and Portland is Bincombe
with its six stone age Bincombe Barrows on the Downs. It is here that
during the Napoleonic wars that a military camp was built and followed
tradition as there has been a military association with Bincombe for
over a thousand years before. The Bronze Age barrows are known as the music barrows and are thought to be the home of the fairy folks and according to local folklore it is possible to hear the fairies playing music if you press your ear to the barrows at noon. The home fleet including Aircraft carriers, submarines and destroyers as well as other ships all met up in Weymouth Bay during the 1930s and proceeded to do a spectacular light display using their searchlights. The Kings Christmas speech was also broadcast from this little village many years before television arrived and the famous Dorset broadcaster Ralph Wightman described the scene in the village when the congregation were at the church service. As usual he described it in his characteristic Dorset dialect. The village has suffered though as in the same year as the King made his speech they had a severe outbreak of foot and mouth disease which completely decimated the cattle. This has also happened again in 2001 when Foot and Mouth again made headline and devastating news. It is also believed that Bincombe Hill is the place that is featured in the nursery rhyme line about the Duke of York marching his troops up the hill and back down again.
|
