Bridport: churches, pubs & mills
A cat with a teacup, on the War Memorial, Bridport. The cat looks disgruntled. I must have interrupted something.
Wandering the streets of Bridport, you get the impression that, along with ropemaking and sailmaking, the inhabitants of Bridport were busy with Dissent and with Drinking. Chapels and pubs abound.
St Mary's, Bridport. The earliest parts of the church date from the 13th century, but it is mostly 14th and 15th century, heavily restored and with aisles added in the 19th century. (I'll have to return another time to explore the interior & the churchyard. There are some nice early table tombs surviving).
An impressively large church, but it had some competition...
The central, pillared building is now Bridport Arts Centre, but was once the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, dating from 1838.
"Bridport has a long tradition of nonconformism and dissent: in 1768 a Dissenters’ Academy (now the Bridge House Hotel) was built in East Street, and by 1865 there were seven non-Church-of-England places of worship competing with the single Anglican church, St Mary’s. The chapel on South Street was built because the number of Methodists had increased so much that the one on North Street was too small for its purpose."
www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2016/04/composing-in-bridport/
I suspect Bridport might have been quite a lively place...
Unitarian Chapel, 1794.
Rather ironically, it faces directly onto what is now the combined Methodist & United Reformed Church:
Date 1859. Very pointy.
Friends' Meeting House, with almshouses in the courtyard behind it. Parts of the building date from 1697.
On the Bridport Museum website, I came across an article about Sylvester Wilkins, a fifteen year old lad who confessed to arson (possibly to protect two friends), and who, despite the jury's recommendation of mercy as the boy had previously been of good character, was publicly hanged for the crime.
Sylvester’s funeral was held on Good Friday 5th April [1833] in St Mary’s Church, Bridport where he had been a choirboy, and was described by a contemporary diarist as a large event with over 2,000 people filing past the coffin and lining the streets, perhaps a reflection of the horror local people felt at this tragic outcome. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard.
https://www.bridportmuseum.co.uk/sylvesterwilkins/
To me, 2,000 people doesn't sound like a funeral, it sounds like a protest...
North Street (which used to be called Pig Lane), site of the original Methodist Chapel. The bale hanging from the building is a mystery - something to do with the hemp or the flax trade?
Bridport's industrial heritage repurposed...
West Mill, 19th century. Recently restored as holiday lets.
The White Lion pub and the River Brit. Some towns make a feature of their rivers, with riverside walks and benches. Bridport tucks its river away in a grubby channel and chucks in the odd shopping trolley as an offering the genius loci. But I did see a kingfisher as I passed - a flash of electric blue plumage, quickly gone.
The Old George Inn. "Charles II stayed at the George as a fugitive on September 23rd 1651 and was disguised as an ostler to evade capture. Dr Giles Roberts (1766-1834) Pharmacy was established in 1788 and it was he who rebuilt this building in 1804 and in 1832 became the first building in Bridport with gas lights. It remained a Pharmacy for 170 years until 1974 having been left to Mr Beach and Mr Barnicott in 1834 on his death. In 1798 Dr Roberts had marketed a revolutionary ointment known as the 'Poor Man's Friend', a cure for aches, pains, gout, etc." https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4283742
The Lord Nelson. 19th century.
The Hope and Anchor.
The old Assembly Rooms at the Hope and Anchor.
The Tiger Inn.
The old Five Bells pub. If you think Bridport has a lot of pubs today, you should see the list of vanished Bridport pubs here.
The Beehive, the Black Horse, the Boot Inn.
The Nag's Head, the Seven Stars, the Swan.
The New Inn, the Old Inn, the Travellers' Rest...
Edward Thomas could probably have written a poem about them.
The Literary and Scientific Institute, constructed in 1834 initially as a Mechanics Institute for the education and training of Bridport’s young working men. "By 1855 it was reconstituted in accordance with the Literary and Scientific Institute Act passed in 1854 with the objective: ‘to encourage the intellectual and moral improvement of all classes and the cultivation of Literature, Science and Art’." https://www.lsibridport.co.uk/lsi-history/1835/
Bridport Museum (image courtesy of Kevin Hale, Wikimedia, as the council seems determined to hide the building behind as much street furniture as possible). 16th century facade, but the building behind was destroyed by fire in 1876 and rebuilt.