Bridport First Prize

Bridport is a market town in Dorset, England, inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the Asker. Its origins are Saxon and it has a long history as a rope-making centre. On the coast and within the town's boundary is West Bay, a small fishing harbour also known as Bridport Harbour.

The town features as Port Bredy in Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels. In the 21st century, Bridport's arts scene has expanded with an arts centre, theatre, cinema and museum.

In the 2011 census the population of Bridport's built-up area was 13,568. The town is twinned with Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, France.

History

Bridport's origins are Saxon. During the reign of King Alfred it became one of the four most important settlements in Dorset – the other three being Dorchester, Shaftesbury and Wareham – with the construction of fortifications and establishment of a mint.

Bridport's name probably derives from another location nearby. In the early 10th century the Burghal Hidage recorded the existence of a fortified centre or burh in this area, called 'Brydian', which is generally accepted as referring to Bridport. 'Brydian' means 'place at the (River) Bride', and this name may have come from an earlier burh in the Bride Valley a few miles to the east, which perhaps was abandoned or not completed in favour of the harbour site at Bridport. A probable location for an earlier burh is at Littlebredy. In 1086 the Domesday Book recorded that the town was called 'Brideport'; 'port' is Old English for a market town, thus 'Brideport' may have described the market town belonging to or associated with Bredy. At a later date, in a reversal of a more typical derivation, the town lent its name to the river on which it stood; previously this had been the River Wooth, but it became the River Brit.

The Domesday Book recorded that Bridport had 120 houses in the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–1066). In 1253 the town was awarded its first charter by Henry III, and by the subsequent reign of Edward I Bridport sent two members to Parliament.Bettey, p109 In the 14th and 15th centuries, like other Dorset coastal towns, Bridport suffered heavy losses due to frequent outbreaks of the Black Death; one 14th-century account by Geoffrey Baker recorded that the disease "almost stripped the seaports of Dorset of their inhabitants". Around this time the town was also subjected to attacks by raiding French and Spanish forces.

Since the Middle Ages Bridport has been associated with the production of rope and nets. The earliest official record of this industry dates from 1211, when King John ordered that Bridport make "as many ropes for ships both large and small and as many cables as you can". The raw materials needed, flax and hemp, used to be grown in the surrounding countryside, though they were superseded in modern times by artificial fibres such as nylon. Bridport's main street is particularly wide due to it previously having been used to dry the ropes, after they had been spun in long gardens behind the houses. Ropes for gallows used to be made in the town, hence the phrase "stabbed with a Bridport dagger" being used to describe a hanging.

In the English Civil War (1642–1651) the population of Bridport mainly supported the royalists. At the end of the war in 1651 Charles II briefly stayed in the town at the George inn as he sought to escape Parliamentarian forces after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester. Local loyalty to the king again played a part in the first action in the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion when on 16 June 1685, 40 cavalry and 400 foot soldiers, commanded for Monmouth, moved on from Lyme Regis to Bridport, where they encountered 1,200 men from the local royalist Dorset militia. The skirmish ended with retreat of the rebel force, although many of the militiamen deserted and joined Monmouth's army.

Many buildings in Bridport, particularly in the main street, date from the 18th century. Bridport Town Hall was built in 1785–6, with its clock tower and cupola added about twenty years later. Older buildings can be found in South Street, and include the 13th-century St. Mary's parish church, the 14th-century chantry and the 16th-century Bridport Museum.

The population of Bridport in 1841 was 4,787. During the 19th century Bridport's population grew little, unlike many Dorset towns, although many sturdy buildings were constructed at this time, showing that at least parts of the population remained prosperous. In 1857 the Bridport Railway was opened, which joined the town with the existing national rail network. This benefitted the town's textile industry and brought cheaper goods such as coal to the area. In 1884 the line was extended from Bridport's station to a new terminus on the coast at Bridport Harbour, which was renamed West Bay as part of attempts to promote it as a resort. The West Bay extension closed to passengers in 1930 and all traffic in 1962. The entire Bridport line closed in 1975.

Governance

In the UK national parliament, Bridport is within the West Dorset parliamentary constituency. , the Member of Parliament (MP) is Chris Loder of the Conservative Party. In local government, Bridport is governed by Dorset Council at the highest tier, and Bridport Town Council at the lowest tier.

In national parliament and local council elections, Dorset is divided into several electoral wards, with Bridport forming two of these: Bridport North and Bridport South. In county council elections, Dorset is divided into 42 electoral divisions, with Bridport being within two: Bridport Electoral Division (the majority of the town) and Bride Valley Electoral Division (includes Bothenhampton, Bradpole and St Andrew's Well).

Geography

Bridport is in the county of Dorset in South West England. Measured directly, it is about west of the county town Dorchester, SSW of Yeovil in Somerset, east of Exeter in Devon and inland from the English Channel at West Bay. The town centre is sited between the small River Brit and its tributary the Asker, about north of their confluence, at an altitude of . Another small tributary, the River Simene, also joins the Brit to the west of the town centre.

Bridport is composed of several small suburban districts, some of which used to be separate villages. These include Allington, Skilling, Coneygar, Bothenhampton, Bradpole, Court Orchard and St Andrew's Well. One and a half miles from the town centre and within the town's boundary is West Bay, a small fishing harbour known as Bridport Harbour until the arrival of the railway.

The geology of Bridport comprises rocks formed in the Pliensbachian, Toarcian, Aalenian, Bajocian, Bathonian and Callovian ages of the Jurassic Period, overlain by superficial Quaternary deposits of alluvium alongside the rivers. There are several faults in the area, including the Mangerton Fault, which is aligned SSW-NNE and runs from West Bay up the valleys of the River Brit and Mangerton River. This intersects with several E-W faults, including three in the lower Brit Valley, between Bothenhampton and West Bay, that run east, and two, north of the town centre, that run west. The land beneath the town centre and to the west and southwest (around the neighbourhood of Skilling) is mostly Eype Clay, a micaceous mudstone/siltstone, though slightly younger Down Cliff Sand crowns the hill at Watton Cross. The hills immediately north of the town are formed from Bridport Sand, with Allington Hill and Watton Hill having small caps of Inferior Oolite. North of the hills, moving away from the town's built-up area, undifferentiated Down Cliff Sand and Thorncombe Sand is separated from the Bridport Sand of the hills in most places by a band of Beacon Limestone. The hills east of the town, around Walditch and Loders, are also mostly of Bridport Sand capped by Inferior Oolite, with the Beacon Limestone outcropping near their base and the undifferentiated sands closer to the town. To the south east however, the faults running east from the lower Brit Valley are associated with a change to slightly younger material, mostly calcareous mudstones and sandstones (Fuller's Earth, Frome Clay and Forest Marble), with small outcrops of Cornbrash limestone and Kellaways Formation to the south of Bothenhampton parish church.

The coast at Bridport is part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site that covers a continuous of coastline in Dorset and neighbouring east Devon. Chesil beach starts at Portland and ends at West Bay. The east pier of West Bay is at the east end of Chesil beach. All of the town is also within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a protected landscape designation of national significance. The town's most notable landmark is the conical Colmers Hill, its distinctive shape and small clump of summit trees being very noticeable from West Street.

Bridport is a Met Office coastal weather observation point.

Demography

The built-up area of Bridport extends into the neighbouring parishes of Allington, Bradpole and Bothenhampton, as well as covering Bridport parish. In the 2011 census the population of these four parishes was 13,568. The 2012 mid-year estimate of the population of Bridport's built-up area is 14,697.

The change in the population of Bridport parish only over preceding decades—not including neighbouring parishes—is shown in the table below.

According to council tax records, in 2014 the proportion of homes within Bridport's built-up area that were second homes was 4.8%. The figure for Bridport parish alone was 5.6%.

Economy

Writing in 1965, Ralph Wightman stated that "in the best possible meaning of the word Bridport has always been an industrial town, and its industries always had a connection with the countryside and the sea ..Bridport has not had any industrial revolution. It has not blasted the countryside, and it has escaped the worst depressions. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that it has always been famous for good food and drink".

In 2012 there were 4,900 people employed in Bridport, 59% of whom were employed full-time and 41% part-time. The most important types of employment were distribution, accommodation and food (39% of non-agricultural employment), public administration, education and health (20%), production (18%) and construction (9%), with the remaining 14% accounted for by finance, ICT and other services. Major employers in the area include AmSafe, Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust, Denhay Farms, Dorset Community NHS Trust, Dorset County Council, Edwards Sports Products, Gundry Bridport Ltd, Morrisons and Waitrose. Several firms in the town continue Bridport's heritage of rope and netmaking: Gundry Bridport Ltd manufacture rope and nets, AmSafe – formed by the industrial division of Gundry Bridport in 1979 – specialise in the design and manufacture of textile safety products for aerospace and defence, and Edwards Sports Products, operating in the town since 1884, manufacture sport nets for major events. Other companies in the town include Palmer's Brewery (JC & RH Palmer Ltd) and valve-manufacturer Curtiss Wright. There are seven business estates in and around the town: Gore Cross Business Park (6.1 hectares or 15 acres), St Andrews Trading Estate (2.4 hectares or 5.9 acres), North Mills Trading Estate (2.2 hectares or 5.4 acres), St Michael's Trading Estate (1.8 hectares or 4.4 acres), Dreadnought Trading Estate (1.6 hectares or 4.0 acres), Pineapple Business Park (1 hectare or 2.5 acres) and Old Laundry/Sea Road North (0.55 hectares or 1.4 acres).

Bridport has a twice-weekly street market and monthly farmers' market. In 2005 there were 128 shops in the town, with a floorspace totalling . Several national chains have stores in the town, including WHSmith, Boots, Morrisons, Co-op, Superdrug, Waitrose, New Look and Fat Face. The food retail catchment area of the town extends up to 5 miles north, east and west, and in 2001 had a population of 19,200. R J Balson & Son, a butcher's shop on West Allington, is known as "England's Oldest Family Butchers", and claims a continuous line of family butchers back to the year 1515. According to the Institute for Family Business, it is the oldest continuously trading family business in the UK.

West Bay is the nearest port to Bridport. West Bay harbour was used by ships carrying cargoes of timber during part of the 1970s.

Culture, art and media

In the 21st century, Bridport's arts scene has contributed to the town becoming increasingly popular with people from outside the locality. It has an arts centre, theatre, library, cinema and museum, and several annual events.

Bridport Arts Centre originated in the early 1970s when local activists bought an old Wesleyan chapel and adjacent schoolroom on South Street and converted them into a theatre and art gallery—named the Allsop Gallery in memory of broadcaster and local resident Kenneth Allsop. The centre hosts a diverse programme of cultural events and since the 1990s has received funding from the Arts Council. In 1973 the centre founded the Bridport Prize, an annual international poetry and short story competition described by its patron Fay Weldon as "a prize really worth fighting for in terms of prestige and genuine literary accomplishment".

The Electric Palace Cinema has occupied its existing site since 1926. It closed down in 1999 but an ensuing campaign to 'Save the Palace' resulted in the building being listed before being bought by a new owner and refurbished to include a digital projector, auditorium murals, a new restaurant and art deco bar. It reopened in 2007 and in March 2009 hosted the world premiere of ''The Young Victoria''.

The Lyric Theatre, which reopened in 2010, hosts quirky theatre, puppetry, comedy, clowning and music. It is also the base of children's theatre company Stuff and Nonsense. Bridport Museum, located in South Street, includes an extensive exhibition of the town's long history of rope-making.

Bridport features as 'Port Bredy' in the fictional 'Wessex' of Thomas Hardy's novels, and is the setting for Eden Phillpotts' 1918 novel ''The Spinners''. Frederick Harcourt Kitchin, under the pseudonym Bennet Copplestone, used the area in his 1922 novel ''The Treasure of Golden Cap''.

Events

Bridport holds a number of festivals. The Bridport Literary Festival has been running since 2005 and has played host to literary figures such as Elizabeth Jane Howard, Victoria Glendinning, Minette Walters and Fay Weldon. Bridport Food Festival is held in late June at Asker Meadow. It showcases locally produced foods for which the area is well known. The Food Festival week concludes with the Round Table Beer Festival. Since 2010, there has been an annual Hat Festival which takes place in 'Bucky Doo Square' for a weekend every September. An annual Christmas Tree Festival is held every December in the United Church. Over sixty trees are decorated by local and national charities, with visitors able to make donations.

Bridport holds an annual carnival on the third Saturday in August. The main feature is a carnival parade of floats, walking acts and majorettes, with other attractions including a car boot sale, fete and funfair. After the carnival South Street is closed for the night as live music is played while people dance in the street. The funfair is also open late. On the following night a torchlight procession takes place, with 1,500 torches carried 2 miles from the town centre to a bonfire at West Bay. This is followed by live music and fireworks. West Bay's funfair opens until late. The events raise money for local good causes and organisations.

Melplash Show, described by its organisers as "the South West’s premier agricultural exhibition", is held annually on the showground at West Bay on the Thursday before the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Local artists in Bridport and the surrounding area open up their studios as part of Bridport Open Studios, which marked its 15th year in 2013. The event takes place over the three days of the August Bank Holiday weekend and over 100 artists participate. The popularity of the event has led to three more open events in November, Easter and May. The biggest artist led venue is the St Michael's Studio complex on the St Michael's Trading Estate. It provides studios for 25 artists and attracted over 700 visitors to the 2009 event.

Other one-day events include the West Bay Wallow, a charity swim event in which participants often wear fancy dress, organised by the Bridport Round Table on Boxing Day, and a raft race in the River Brit basin, also at West Bay, in July; it is organised by the RNLI and participants race in homemade rafts and usually wear fancy dress. It has been run for over forty years and attracts thousands of spectators, with money raised for the RNLI.

Media

Bridport has one local weekly newspaper, the ''Bridport News'', owned by Newsquest and published on Thursdays. The ''Dorset Echo'' also serves Bridport and is published daily from Monday to Saturday.

Local television is served by the BBC's ''Spotlight'' based in Plymouth and by the ITV West Country channel based in Bristol. Terrestrial television is transmitted in digital from the Stockland Hill Transmitter and also a digital relay transmitter based at Highlands End. Due to Bridport's location in West Dorset, viewers are more likely to receive news about Somerset, Devon, Cornwall and the Channel Islands than they are about East and North Dorset.

Bridport's local commercial radio station is Greatest Hits Radio, which broadcasts on 96.0 FM from Highlands End. Owned by Bauer, it also serves Weymouth and Dorchester. BBC
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