Beware Of The Bridport Dagger! (Bridport in General)

Member Name: flutel

Product:	Bridport in General
Date:	29/09/09 (73 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Mix of utilitarian and interest/luxury shops

Disadvantages: Town museum not very accessible

I love, love, love visiting Dorset. In fact, this picture of the coast near Bridport is my favourite beach ever. The beach is the Seatown beach just off the Golden Cap Campsite. Seatown is a little village of thatched cottages just off the coast road from Lyme Regis to Dorchester.



From the beach, you can look up to Golden Cap which is the highest cliff in Britain. You can also climb it along the coast walk if you are feeling energetic! The beach here is full of fossils and bits of quartz - a regular free treasure trove.



I always stay at the Golden Cap campsite (google Golden Cap webcam if you want to see the view from the site to the coast). I also always go to visit Bridport during my stay.



Bridport is well signposted from the coast road. You travel into the town over the river Brit. In a car, I found my last visit very easy. On approachiing the town, I took the first carpark turning on the right which takes you both to the small bus station and a decent sized car park. I parked and paid the very cheap fee (approx 50p for 2 hrs).



Thee town really consists of two main shopping streets that meet in a T shape. There are many interesting and useful shops and a trip to Bridport can easily occupy two hours if you are browsing.


Shopping
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If you need provisions, the town has a Waitrose supermarket very near the aforementioned car park. This is stocked with many local/organic/vegan beers and wines as well as the usual necessaries. There are also a couple of organic/health food/deli type shops that sell veg and other interesting items (especially for veggies). There are a couple of bakeries, the one on the main street going uphill has some chunky and interesting cakes; it really is hard to resist; my daughter bought a huge fruit flapjack here. The other bakery (on the other street sold the most tempting slices of cake. A humongus chocolate cake just about filled the whole of the window (£2.25 a slice).


In terms of clothes, if you should have an urgent need to buy an item on holiday, there is a Peacocks store and a camp/rambling shop on the high street with one or two other smaller clothes shops. The camping shop sells a good variety of items. I bought a new airbed from there when my old one popped.



The shops I like the most are the ones that sell lots of ethnic and vintage-style cloths and trinkets. These are the shops close to the Bridport museum (I'll come to that later). One of them sells lovely indian cloths and sarongs, soft cotton turkish towels, beautiful bedspreads and curtains and rather beautiful white nighties and kimono type dressing gowns. A couple of years ago, I bought an exquisite Indian blue cotton sarong with beading around the edges and silver patterns on it for around £12. If I had limitless cash, I would spend a lot of it in this shop.


There is a shop opposite that sells the vintage stuff; enamel cups, bunting, pinnys, cakestands etc. A fab browsing experience.


Other miscellaneous shops include second hand book shops, some cheap (pound type) shops, hardware, fruit shops.


There are also numerous cafes including a Costa Coffee and some little tea shops well frequented by pensioners (must be good and good value).


Bridport Museum
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The Bridport Museum is situated in a very ancient building that looks out over one of the main streets. It is free to go into (hooray!) and it makes a welcome change from the shopping. You enter via the gift shop that you can go into again when you leave. The first exhibition is about the ancient history of the town, most notably the production of rope from the flax and grasses harvested in the area. The rope produced here was used for ships but most importantly and somewhat macabre - the rope was used for hanging those sentenced to death many years ago. So the exhibition then turns into a gruesome account of the art of hanging - even telling how convicted children were hung so that their agony was not prolonged! There are different sort of nooses to look at too.



On a warm summer's day, I found this dark exhibition a little chilling - but also I found it intensely interesting. There is a phrase they use here - 'Stabbed by a Bridport dagger' - it means being hung - the dagger being the deadly rope of the noose!


Up the rickety stairs of the museum are more exhibits - a few paintings of local significance and a small costume display. The best exhibit being a womens suffragette uniform in black, green and purple - the colours of sufferage. Due to the nature of the tiny museum, I found I was up very close to the costumes - even though they were behind glass. I am very interested in this area of history and I found it quite moving to be able to examine it so closely. The juxtaposition of this exhibit and the other symbols of control and oppression (the nooses) felt quite meaningful.


This was a great museum to visit and I spent an entertaining half hour there - but I fear that those with a disability would not have been able to see the upstairs exhibits due to the lack of lift and the steep stairs.


Other things to note
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The town has public toilets near the carpark/bus station and an arts centre with various activities - however none of them have tempted me in away from the shopping delights. There is also a market day but I am unsure of the weekday. On this day, there are stalls set up on the street outside the museum. There are lots of antiques and collectibles and it is certainly worth a look.


There is also a good bus service through Bridport either to Lyme Regis or to Weymouth.

Summary: Good place to spend a couple of happy hours and/or stock up