Chamber pots?
It is perhaps surprising that no guests have complained about the lack of chamber pots in our bedrooms. Why surprising? Because we aim to give everyone a warm Weymouth welcome, in the spirit of our history as one of the UK’s more popular seaside resorts.
That history goes back more than two hundred years. Back then, the most prestigious of our hotels and boarding houses would have considered chamber pots an absolute essential. In addition to that humble piece of porcelain, guests would also have expected a fireplace in every room, enough lamps and candles to illuminate the darker hours, and bowls of warm water supplied on demand.
Almost every one of our seafront guest houses was built long before anyone considered hot and cold running water on tap, electric lights or air conditioning. Even beds with a comfortable mattress were a luxury, reserved for the well-to-do. Their servants – and they often had quite a few – would have put up with much more basic facilities. No surprise then that today, over two centuries later, many of the town’s busy bed and breakfasts are blessed with lashings of ‘character’. Creaking floorboards, curiously shaped rooms and lots of staircases are all reminders of Weymouth’s deep-rooted heritage as a holiday destination.
Of course, improvements have been made since the days when King George III got his family up at 5am every day for an early morning dip in the sea. During the Victorian years, private homes, guest houses and hotels on the seafront switched candles for gas lights. Around a hundred years ago, the gas pipes and light fittings were exchanged for wires and bulbs, as electricity supplies were installed.
The early twentieth century also kept the plumbers busy, with mains water being piped into every building. Basins, baths and indoor toilets were installed, although not in every room. No one expected an en-suite and we wonder how many still found the chamber pot to be a handy night-time convenience.
The Gresham is typical of the many elegant seafront houses built at the end of the Georgian period, around two hundred years ago. Spacious rooms, high ceilings, a generous sense of space. As with many of its neighbours, it was a family home, not a hotel.
Weymouth tourists in the 1820s through to 1850s were the well-to-do who came by carriage. Many could afford to rent an entire seafront house for their stay, often remaining here for weeks at a time. Perhaps the owners of 5 Belvidere (our address back then) rented out their home to summer visitors, while they took their own holiday elsewhere.
The end of royal visits by George III and his family – the last was Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester, in 1817 – did not dent Weymouth’s popularity as a resort for the wealthy. Brighton might have become more fashionable, but many still appreciated a dip in the waves that wash Weymouth’s gentle sands.
Then the railway came to town, carrying with it an entirely new shape of tourist. In the last decades of the Victorian age, and in the years that followed, trains disgorged an enthusiastic throng of holiday makers from the workshops of Birmingham and elsewhere.
They came in their tens of thousands, and they needed places to stay. Many of the seafront houses became temporary homes for multiple families, couples and individuals. The big Georgian rooms were carved up into smaller spaces that could be rented out. Number 5 Belvidere changed from being a family home into a hotel in the 1920s.
Look up at the ceilings. The Georgian mouldings around the edge give a clue how the original wide rooms were divided up into smaller spaces to accommodate guests. Those first hotel rooms were equipped with modern conveniences. In the 1920s, that meant a bed, a dresser, a chair or two, electric lights and a window that opened. No ensuite and the basin was probably a bowl of warm water brought up by the staff. Heating probably meant wearing more layers in chilly weather, and they may still have been offered a chamber pot for the night.
No internet?
In-room entertainment included books, magazines and games. There was no television or radio, and most definitely no internet. However, the owners of the Gresham kept up with the times. A 1949 advert boasts that all 14 bedrooms have a fitted basin with hot and cold running water. Other benefits on offer include ‘real English catering with skilled management’, ‘best produce procurable’ and ‘up-to-date equipment’.
Over the years, televisions and radios became available in rooms. The next big improvement came in the 1980s when our en-suites were built. Inevitably, this meant a further carving up of what were the airy Georgian rooms. The installation of central heating did away with the need for portable paraffin or electric heaters. If, like George III, you choose to rise at 5am, there’s no need to ask a servant to bring hot water for washing. The basins and showers that deliver hot and cold water aren’t the originals, fitted decades ago. You can easily turn on the television or search the internet on your smartphone, tablet or laptop.
The Georgian and Victorian inhabitants of 5 Belvidere would marvel at the comforts and conveniences available in every room. They’d also be pleased to see some familiar reminders of the house they lived in, such as the decoration on the ceilings and the downstairs fireplace. Although, like us, they’d appreciate that radiators are a much more efficient way to warm up a space.
When you’re staying in the Gresham, or almost any other of Weymouth’s seafront hotels and guest houses, it’s worth remembering they were built for another age. Many of the conveniences we take for granted weren’t imaginable by the bricklayers and carpenters who put these places together. They would be amazed at how we’ve been able to transform their handiwork into today’s Gresham, a hotel suitable for twenty-first century guests.
