This Weymouth view dates from 1960.

How the scene has changed in the intervening 60 years.

The photographer chose his vantage point on Chapelhay wisely, showing a panoramic view.

The Inner Harbour, then known less stylishly as the Backwater, contained a wider range of craft than the leisure craft of today, for the first pontoon system was 10 years into the future.

Outside the fire station a derelict motor launch, previously used as a houseboat in the Outer Harbour, has sunk and was broken up at the council’s expense.

On the Commercial Road side, the Cosens paddle steamers Embassy and Monarch are laid up for the winter but the Monarch was to be sold and broken up in Ireland the following spring.

Near Westham Bridge the Sea Cadet training vessel Boscawen is moored, although her condition is deteriorating and in a few years she too will be scrapped in favour of new premises on the Nothe.

An interesting collection of buildings is visible, adding variety to the scene. In the section to Lower St Alban Street is a streetscape associated with port activity. The engineering works of Cosens and Company (behind the Embassy), and various small engineering works – and even the town mortuary, although by this date the building had a more mundane use.

North of the junction with St Alban Street there were the offices and timber store of Webb Major, builders merchants and a small printing works.

The rather distinguished looking building to the right of the picture is the wing of the White Ensign Club, built in 1907 as hostel for the many men of the Royal Navy then in port. This was a fine structure of 1907 designed by Crickmay and described in Pevsner’s Buildings of Britain as ‘Weymouth’s most distinguished building of the last hundred years’.

Unfortunately it was demolished in 1970, although suitable alternative uses could have probably been found.

Dominating the middle distance is the Gaumont Cinema (previously the Regent and later the Odeon and New Invicta), which was demolished in 1989 amid much controversy.

On the harbourside toward Westham Bridge are the corrugated iron premises of Kennedys builders merchants and next to them Melcombe Regis Boys School, another Crickmay design, which, following closure, served for nearly 20 years from 1971 as the town’s first museum.

From the angle of the photo, it appears that the town has a three spired church. The spire of St. John’s church appears between the two spires of Gloucester Street Congregational Church. The latter was demolished in 1980 and the site is now occupied by George Thorne House.

Finally, on the extreme left of the picture, the girder railway bridge carrying the Portland railway spans Radipole Lake. The line closed to freight in 1965 and the bridge was demolished in 1974.