Swanage...past
Together with his uncle, John Mowlem (1788-1868), George Burt (1816 –1894) did more than anyone to drag Swanage into the modern world. Both were born in Swanage, and both owed their wealth to the building firm founded by Mowlem in 1823, initially by repaving and kerbing London streets.
Purbeck stone had been quarried here since medieval times, and its various trades dominated the life of the mid-Victorian town; in the 1860s one in three adult males in Swanage was involved in the stone industry.
Mowlem levelled and improved many of Swanage’s streets, campaigned for the building of the first timber-built pier, and paid for the demolition of overcrowded tenements near the shore, replacing them with the Mowlem Institute (now Mowlem Theatre) as a cultural centre, ‘for the benefit and mutual improvement of the working classes’.
His nephew’s ambitions for his home town were altogether of a different scale; Thomas Hardy’s description of Burt as the ‘King of Swanage’ is not far from the truth. In 1862, he bought the abandoned quarries at Tilly Whim and a windswept estate at Durlston. His intention was the creation of a suburb of 150 terraced houses, with roads and crescents, though only a few villas were ever built. He bought the gasworks at Prospect Farm, installing salvaged street lamps from London to light Swanage. He also found a good source of water for the town below the chalk at Ulwell, and sank a well and built a reservoir.
Burt willingly dipped his hands into his pockets to meet the costs of anything he thought might ‘improve’ Swanage, from contributing to its first lifeboat to paying for new bells for the parish church.
In 1887 he built the battlemented Durlston Castle as a tourist attraction, with its terraces, restaurant and ‘Great Globe’. The Masonic Hall, Methodist church spire, first public pleasure gardens, and a new row of shops in Station Road followed after the arrival of the railway in 1885. He also saw to the construction of a new Town Hall incorporating the façade of the Mercer’s Hall on Cheapside – all of these and more were paid for by Burt’s London profits. Not everybody liked him, but few can dispute his determination to put Swanage on the map.
Swanage...present
Swanage Railway: This award-winning heritage railway line runs steam and diesel trains along the track between Swanage, Corfe Castle and Norden. Driver experiences and special train themed events happen throughout the year. swanagerailway.co.uk
Durlston: Burt’s residential suburb may not have been fully realised, but it gave Swanage a National Nature Reserve overlooking Durlston Bay, with an astronomy observatory, exhibition space and Great Globe sculpture. durlston.co.uk
Swanage Pier: Opened in 1897, the Grade II listed building was restored by Swanage Pier Trust in 1998. It was awarded the Pier of The Year in 2012 by the National Piers Society. swanagepiertrust.com
