Swans have long been associated with Weymouth and Radipole Lake. It all started with a generous gift from Abbotsbury Swannery to the town and people of Weymouth. You can probably guess what that gift was.... yes, a donkey.
Only joking, it was obviously a swan, in fact a pair. This all happened in about 1839 long before the building of Westham bridge which meant that Radipole Lake didn’t exist at the time, it would have still been an estuary. The pair of swans were released near the old Weymouth fire station but only after the appointment of a Swan Herd, now known as the Swan Warden. Another condition laid down by the swannery was that they were fed daily. Amazingly the role of Swan Warden is still undertaken to this day and the Weymouth and Portland council now carry the responsibility of feeding the swans daily though clearly not the pair released originally!
To celebrate this fascinating piece of the town's history we are holding a special weekend full of activities all focused on our superb mute swans. There’ll be arty things for the kids including decorating our giant swan, there’ll be a swan detective trail for folks to follow, a swan census, swan themed food (though not actual swan!) and plenty more.
So I would imagine you’d want to know the date? Of course you do! It’s all happening on the Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th of this month from 10am with most of the activities around the Discovery Centre, though the trail will take you to parts of the reserve normally out of bounds. Pretty exciting eh?
We’ll see you there!
Donkey? Woof!