Southport

“ Sometimes sand silts up as at Southport in Lancashire, where there is the second longest pier in England, a mile in length, from the end of which it is said that on a clear day with a powerful telescope you may perchance see the sea, that a distinguished traveller accustomed to the deserts of Sahara once found it, and that the name Southport is altogether a misnomer, as it is in the north and there is no port at all. ”

“ The sea is leaving Southport quite in the lurch—so much so indeed that the inhabitants have had to sink extensive lakes down on the beach to keep the sea from running off altogether and leaving merely an ordinary inland town. ”

“ Southport (41) , a watering-place of Lancashire, situated on the southern shore of the Ribble estuary, 18 m. N. of Liverpool; is a town of quite modern growth and increasing popularity; has a fine sea-shore, esplanade, park, theatre, public library, art gallery, etc.
Southwark (339) , or the Borough, a division of London, on the Surrey side of the Thames, opposite the City, and annexed to it in 1827; it sends three members to Parliament, and among its principal buildings are St. Saviour's Church and Guys Hospital.
Southwell, Robert, poet, born in Norfolk ”

“ Each morning in those warm August days by the summer sea they came out for a stroll on the seafront; bright with movement and gaiety, taking an airing before settling down to their studies for the day.
On this particular morning, about ten o’clock, the seafront was already full of men in flannels and lounge-suits, and women in garments of muslin and other such flimsy materials usually affected at the seaside, for stifled and jaded Londoners had flocked down there, as usual, to enjoy the sea air and all the varied attractions which Southport never fails to offer. ”

“ My father had attained to a certain degree of wealth, and was ever enticing my mother with dreams of a prolonged visit to her beloved birthplace, Southport, which is, I believe, a pretty town on the seaboard of Lancashire, and which I look forward with delight to visiting. ”

“ An extensive service of electric tramways is maintained. The first considerable house in Southport (an inn for the reception of sea-bathers) was built in 1701, and soon after other houses were erected on the site row known as Lord Street, but the population in 1809 was only 100. Birkdale is a residential district adjacent to Southport on the south. In 1867 Southport received a charter of incorporation. It became a county borough in 1905. The corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. ”

“ The want at Southport is more sea. The tide not only goes out to an incredible distance, but always seems reluctant to return. It is in respect of this that superiority is so justly claimed by Blackpool, the sea at the latter place, save on exceptional days, being always within view, always grand and inspiring. ”

“ It's a paradise, and land's cheap. I can sell you land right back of Southport, with fine market for whatever you raise, on terms that will pay themselves--pay themselves. Just go aboard the first boat, and I'll give you a letter to my partner in Southport--and your fortunes will be made in ten years!"
"The trouble is," said Bill, "that we'll be so damned lonesome out where we don't know any one. If we could locate along o' some of our ol' mates, somebody like old John Tucker,--it would be a--a paradise, eh, Jake?"
"The freest-hearted people in the world," said Mr. Wisner. ”

“ The men of Southport, who had awakened to the knowledge that Uncle Ben's scheme of giving a home to boys who needed and were willing to work for one, had come to Apple Island intending to do all they could toward building such a house as would provide for the needs of the future, but at the same time they counted on mixing a good deal of pleasure with their labor. ”

“ It is all very prosperous, this new rubicund neighbourhood: sand-hills and wide shore spread between it and the sea; half a dozen golf-links accompany its brisk march by the railway-side; and that march can really scarcely be regarded as completed until the railway [Pg 101] terminates, and plutocracy flames up in a last supreme outburst, twenty miles away from Liverpool, among the bathing-vans and pierrots of Southport: for Southport, too, in spite of plutocratic hauteur, is being rapidly induced by locomotion to play the part of Liverpool’s accessory. ”

“ The summit gained, over fifteen hundred feet above the sea, the prospect is magnificent, especially if we delay till the green country glows with a summer evening’s sunset. The great plain that stretches to the Ribble, and renews itself as the “Fylde,” lies at our feet. Chorley and Preston seem quite close; in the distance the church–towers and other aspiring portions of Southport are plainly visible, and beyond all there is a shining streak that is unmistakably the play–ground of the sea–gulls. North Cheshire, North Wales, and the nearer Derbyshire hills, are also seen. ”

“ Mericarp had been a considerable owner of property in Bursley. After a prolonged residence at Southport, he had died, at the age of eighty-two, leaving his property behind. For sixty years he had been a name, not a figure; and the news of his death, which was assuredly an event, incited the burgesses to gossip, for they had come to regard him as one of the invisible immortals. Constance was shocked, though she had never seen Mericarp. ("Everybody dies nowadays!" she thought.) He owned the Baines-Povey shop, and also Mr. Critchlow's shop. ”

“ I'm hoping that the world will soon get tired of twisting round the wrong way, for it's hard to convince mesilf that I'm not right, which the same don't often happen wid me. As I figure out it's a straight coorse to Southport. If me dad has forgot to show a signal light at home or at Mr. Landon's, I may run down the island before I obsarves the same—phwat does that maan? ”

“ Manchester 10 40 2 6 1 6 1 0 Fares from Bolton First Class Second Class Third Class TO Horwich and Blackrod 1s 6d 1s 0d 0s 8d Adlington 2 0 1 4 1 0 Chorley 2 6 1 6 0 0 Clayton Green 4 0 2 6 0 0 Bamber Bridge 4 6 3 0 0 0 Preston 5 6 3 6 0 0 Southport 9 0 6 0 0 0 On Sundays 2nd class passangers are charged only 3rd class fares. ”

“ It is worth the while to make a voyage up this stream, if you go no farther than Sudbury, only to see how much country there is in the rear of us; great hills, and a hundred brooks, and farm-houses, and barns, and hay-stacks, you never saw before, and men every where, Sudbury, that is Southborough men, and Wayland, and Nine-Acre-Corner men, and Bound Rock, where four towns bound on a rock in the river, Lincoln, Wayland, Sudbury, Concord. Many waves are there agitated by the wind, keeping nature fresh, the spray blowing in your face, reeds and rushes waving ”

“ Southend is already feeling its way toward the west. The central ganglion of the town is perched in its little basin in thick clusters of houses, that seem to climb over the rounded wold; but the stray villas are planted like pioneers, and by-and-by the lines will be completed, and Southend will perhaps come to be in touch of London.
The magnetic attraction of the great city is felt everywhere. We are so secure now that bodies of men no longer huddle themselves within the solid safety of stone walls. Every modern English town has a tendency to sprawl. ”

“ A little to the left is Sudbury, which stands upon the River Stour, mentioned above—a river which parts the counties of Suffolk and Essex, and which is within these few years made navigable to this town, though the navigation does not, it seems, answer the charge, at least not to advantage.
I know nothing for which this town is remarkable, except for being very populous and very poor. They have a great manufacture of says and perpetuanas, and multitudes of poor people are employed in working them; but the number of the poor is almost ready to eat up the rich. ”

“ The dull neglected peasant, sunk in matter, insolent, gross and servile, makes a startling contrast to our own long-legged, long-headed, thoughtful, Bible-loving ploughman. A week or two in such a place as Suffolk leaves the Scotsman gasping. It seems impossible that within the boundaries of his own island a class should have been thus forgotten. Even the educated and intelligent who hold our own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with a difference or from another reason, and to speak on all things with less interest and conviction. ”

“ So you are coming to live at Southwick. Very glad to hear it. You know where to find us, the gate's always open; lunch at half-past one, dinner at eight—old Indians, you know; come in when you like. Pretty place I have here, everything I want—stables and horses, and (the General looked to see if Lucy was out of hearing) plenty of dogs, you know—a few too many; but my wife, you know—” The rest was lost in a burst of good-natured laughter.
They bade the Horlocks good-night and walked up the Southdown Road, looking with its line of trees along the pavement like a little mock boulevard. ”

“ The tourist informed me that Eastport looked very well at a distance, with the sun shining on its white houses. When we landed at its wooden dock we saw that it consisted of a few piles of lumber, a sprinkling of small cheap houses along a sidehill, a big hotel with a flag-staff, and a very peaceful looking arsenal. It is doubtless a very enterprising and deserving city, but its aspect that morning was that of cheapness, newness, and stagnation, with no compensating pictur-esqueness. White paint always looks chilly under a gray sky and on naked hills. ”

“ Southington I found to be a picturesque place, in the sunlight, set at a little height above the water, its cottages furnished with pleasant green gardens, and the village distinguished by a post-office in the grocer's shop and a tidy inn—"The Feathers." Down by the estuary was a small landing-stage and boats, and I soon got into conversation with a seafaring man who was lounging near. It seemed that the boats were his property, and that he let them to summer visitors.
"Do you get many?" ”

“ On the Essex coast, opposite Sheerness, are two famous places, Southend and Shoeburyness—the one a famous resort for trippers, the other an important school of artillery.
Not so very long ago Southend was unheard of. Defoe, who covered the ground hereabouts pretty thoroughly, makes no mention of it even as a hamlet; yet to-day it is a flourishing and constantly growing town—not so much a watering-place nowadays as a rather distant suburb of London. ”

“ Here is an ancient church, with little western bellcote instead of a tower. Turning to left here, along a very bad track, the waterside will be reached at Allhallows Fort, a modern masonry work at the spot called “Bell’s Hard,” looking across to Southend, some four miles away. Southend from this point looks almost as red and yellow, and the sea, under favourable conditions, as blue, as the places pictured on the familiar advertisements of the railway companies. “Almost,” you will observe, not quite! There is nothing on earth really so gorgeous as those. ”

“ And behind the fragment lies Southampton, hostess to the nations, and Portsmouth, a latent fire, and all around it, with double and treble collision of tides, swirls the sea. How many villages appear in this view! How many castles! How many churches, vanished or triumphant! How many ships, railways, and roads! What incredible variety of men working beneath that lucent sky to what final end! The reason fails, like a wave on the Swanage beach; the imagination swells, spreads, and deepens, until it becomes geographic and encircles England. ”

“ I got to Southend in record time. I only ran over one hen, but I very nearly had an old woman and a dog. I piled up with sixpenny novels and comic papers at the first bookshop, got three bottles of whisky, half a pound of navy-cut, and some matches, and started back. It was half-past three when I left Southend, and I hadn't gone more than two miles when the car came to a dead stop. I don't know the 'innards' of a car. I only knew that the thing had stopped, that I was nine miles from the cottage, and that the car was right in the fair way blocking the road. ”

“ Beyond Aldrington is Portslade, with a pretty inland village on the hill; beyond Portslade is Southwick, notable for its green; and beyond Southwick is Shoreham. Southwick and Shoreham both have that interest which can never be wanting to the seaport that has seen better days. The life of a harbour, whatever its state of decay, is eternally absorbing; and in Shoreham harbour one gets such life at its laziest. ”

“ Southampton of to-day may be described as a fairly picturesque town, though modernity and convenience, rather than beauty, distinguish the suburbs, which are so constantly extending on all sides landward; but yachting folk find it a pleasant port, and, moored off pretty and quaint Hythe within reasonable distance of the Royal Pier, can pass a week-end or even longer comfortably enough.
Almost every seaport has its distinguishing feature, and a long acquaintance with Southampton inclines one to think that the mingling of the old with the very new is what strikes the observer most forcibly. ”

“ Southey—and not far off you have the woods of Netley Abbey—the Isle of Wight, the Solent, and the open sea.
But still move on through the fair fields of Dorset and Somerset, to the enchanted land of Devon. If you want stern grandeur, follow its north-western coast; if peaceful beauty, look down into some one of its rich vales, green as an emerald, and pastured by its herds of red cattle; if all the summer loveliness of woods and rivers, you may ascend the Tamar or the Tavy, or many another stream ”