Portesham

On the Black Downs northeast of Portesham stands Hardy Monument (National Trust) which commemorates not Thomas Hardy, the great novelist of Wessex, but Sir Thomas Hardy, the flag-captain of HMS Victory at Trafalgar to whom the dying Lord Nelson spoke the immortal words, ‘Kiss me, Hardy’, (or possibly, ‘Kismet, Hardy’).  Sir Thomas was born in Portesham and, like his novelist namesake, was descended from the Hardys of Jersey. After Trafalgar, he escorted Nelson’s body back to London and soon afterwards was created a baronet and, eventually, First Sea Lord. Sir Thomas’s stunningly graceless memorial has been variously described as a ‘huge candlestick’, a ‘’peppermill’, and most accurately as a ‘factory chimney wearing a crinoline’. But if you stand with your back to it, there are grand views over Weymouth Bay.