BRIDPORT
By the Rev. R. Grosvenor Bartelot, M.A.
N the days when vikings, pirates, and roving sea-dogs ruled the waves it was a decided advantage for the shipping merchant to reside in a port which lay a mile or so up a river-mouth rather than on the coast itself. Fourteenth century Weymouth folk knew this to their cost. Dwellers they were in a growing hamlet on the sea-coast, with no church of their own, so they had to walk over the hill to Mass at Wyke Regis. Whilst thus employed in pious worship, down swooped the French ships on their defenceless abodes, and when they returned to their Sunday dinner their homesteads were a smouldering ash-heap. After that, they decided to build a chapel of their own on high ground, whence the eye of the watchman could sweep the horizon in search of strange craft.
Such a sudden surprise as this could never have occurred at Bridport. Following Wareham’s good example, the builders of this ancient town had an eye to communication by land and sea. They hugged the Roman Road, and at the same time they lay snug up a river-mouth. The Brit, which rises in the upland slopes of Axnoller Hill, amidst some of the finest Wessex scenery, after a short course through Beaminster Town, past the beautiful Tudor mansion of Parnham and the villages of Netherbury and Melplash, unites with the Symene and the Asker streams at Bridport Town, and thence flows into West Bay, a mile further on, at Bridport Harbour.
Whether in Roman times this place had any importance cannot now be definitely determined. If, however, the name of the station, Londinis, on the Icen Way from Dorchester to Exeter, be but a Latinised form of Lyndaen—i.e., “Broad Pool”—then there is reason to believe that Bridport High Street, which runs along the edge of Bradpole parish, is on the old Roman Road. That Bradpole was only a hamlet of Bridport is shown by the fact that not until the year 1527 had the former parish any right to bury its parishioners anywhere except in the churchyard of the latter place. The evidence of the name of the town certainly favours Roman occupation; “port” in this case is not derived from a personal source; this is the “door, or gate, of the Brit.”
We have more clear evidence of its growing importance in the Saxon period. The name of its western suburb, “Allington,” is always in mediæval days written “Athelington,” “the town of the nobles.” Hence the fashion in modern London of the aristocracy flocking to the “West End,” is, after all, only an imitation of an example set by Bridport long years ago. In Edward the Confessor’s reign one hundred and twenty houses stood in this Dorset town, which, in comparison with the other towns of the county, came next to Dorchester and Wareham. Bridport, too, had a mint of its own, and its mint-master paid well for the privilege of coining.
The Norman Conquest does not appear to have been an unmixed blessing in these parts. In Domesday Survey the town is shown to have gone back considerably. Twenty houses are stated to be desolate, and the people impoverished. All these bad times, however, had passed away before the reign of King John, when Bridport was already famous for its manufacture of rope, sailcloth, and nets, and these have been its staple industries down to modern days. As early as the year 1211 the Sheriff of Dorset paid the goodly sum of £48 9s. 7d. for 1,000 yards “of cloth by the warp to make sails of ships, and for 3,000 weights of hempen thread according to Bridport weight for making ships’ cables, and 39 shillings for the expenses of Robert the Fisher whilst he stayed at Bridport to procure his nets.” Let us hope “Bridport weight” was, as it is now, specially good for the price.
Residents in the town in these days are almost tired of the threadbare witticism about the “Bridport dagger,” but, for the sake of the uninitiated, it must be repeated here. When anyone wished to speak tenderly of some person who died at the hangman’s hand, he described him as being “stabbed with a Bridport dagger.” John Leland, the itinerant chronicler of the days of Henry VIII., came here and heard the joke, but it never penetrated his prosaic skull, so he gravely recorded in his note-book: “At Bridporth be made good daggers.” Suffice it to say that Newgate was duly supplied in those days (as the old Morality play, Hycke Scorner, tells us) with:
Ones a yere some taw halters of Burporte.
Whilst an Act of Parliament of 1528 says that “time out of mind they had used to make within the town for the most part all the great cables, ropes, hawsers, and all other tackling for the Royal Navy.” This industry has left its mark upon the architecture of the place. The streets are broad, to allow every house its “rope walk.” Some fine examples of mediæval domestic architecture are extant, notably the one now used as the Conservative Club on the east side of South Street, evidently a merchant’s house of Tudor days.
Few country towns were so rich in ecclesiastical foundations as was Bridport in the Middle Ages. It possessed the present Parish Church of St. Mary, which then had seven altars and numerous chantries; after much restoration (during which the tomb of a great-grandson of Edward I. perished), it is even now a noble example of the piety of prosperous merchants. There were, besides, the churches of St. Andrew, where now the Town Hall stands, and St. Swithun, in Allington. Other religious foundations included the Priory, now the rope factory; the double chantry chapel of St. Michael, where now is extant only the lane of that name; the Hospital of St. John, at the East Bridge; the Mawdelyn Leper House, in Allington; and the Chapel of St. James, in Wyke’s Court Lane. One can well imagine that clerical interests might sometimes clash amidst such a galaxy of places for worship. In fact, in the reign of Henry VIII. Sir John Strangwayes, Steward of the Borough, lodged a complaint with the Chancellor of the Diocese “against the disorder of certain chantry priests residing at Bridport.” This was evidently a harbinger of the coming dissolution of monastic foundations, which confined the worship of the town to two churches under one rector.
By far the greatest interest of old Bridport is centred in its immensely valuable Borough Records. These include a vast collection of old deeds of Plantagenet times more or less connected with the history of the whole county, whilst the copies of sixty-five mediæval wills, ranging from 1268 to 1460, are of unique interest and importance, dating, as so many of them do, before 1383, when the Records of the Prerogative Wills of Canterbury commence. In addition to these, a very complete series of borough charters is preserved amongst these records. Bridport was a self-governing town, with the privileges of a Royal Borough, long before 1252, when its first charter was granted by King Henry III. This was probably soon lost, for the same King, on May 5th, 1270, affixed his seal to another, which recites its predecessor thus:
The King, having inspected the rolls of his Chancery, finds that at the time when Peter de Chacepoler was keeper of his wardrobe, the men of Bridport paid thirty marks, and in return received a charter, etc.
From that time onward each Sovereign seems to have extorted a nice little donation for renewing the charter, each document growing in size and verbosity compared with the one which it supplanted, right down to the reign of James II.
Amongst the books possessed by the Corporation, the most ancient carries us back to old Bridport from a legal point of vision. It is the law-book of Richard Laurence, M.P., who lived from about 1300 to 1361. In it he has recorded copies of all the Acts of Parliament which would be likely to come in useful to him in his legal profession. Beginning from Magna Charta itself, he could turn to this volume, and at a glance see what punishments were enacted against coin-clippers, false measures, brewers of too mild ale, or even against bigamists. Many are the entries referring to nautical affairs, showing how often he must have been consulted by busy Dorset mariners. How many a six and eightpence this worthy lawyer of six centuries ago made out of this book! On one page he records a matter less prosaic—his daughter’s birthday. There were no parish registers then, so he writes:
Laurentia, the second daughter of Richard and Petronel Laurencz, was born on the vigil of Saint Petronilla, being Whitsun Eve, in the 12th year of King Edward III. (1338).
He who so often made other people’s wills at last made his own on July 26th, 1361, which is duly preserved amongst the muniments.
Another volume—the old dome-book of the borough—contains amidst solemn minutes of meetings of the Corporation back in the days of the Edwards, many quaint little quibbles. The writer evidently dotted down on a fly-leaf the following as being a very good witticism which, in the relaxation following a heavy session, some worthy Bridport alderman of old told to beguile away the weariness of his fellow civic fathers: “I will cause you to make a cross, and, without any interference, you will be unable to leave the house without breaking that cross.” This is how it was to be done: “Clasp a post fixed in the house, and make a cross with your extended arms, and then how can you go out without breaking that cross.” Here is another, after the “blind beggar’s brother” pattern: “A pear tree bore all the fruit that a pear tree ought to bear, and yet it did not bear pears. What is the answer?” “Well, it only bore one pear.” Somewhat childish, certainly, but such little “catches” as these delighted the mediæval conversationalist; and do they not show that human nature has ever been the same? An interesting sidelight is thrown upon the clock trade of those days by a document dated 1425, whereby Sir John Stalbrygge, priest, was paid three shillings and fourpence for “keeping the clock on St. Andrew’s Church.” Matters horological in the Middle Ages were almost entirely in the hands of the church. The clergy and monks were the clock-makers and menders; witness the Glastonbury Clock in Wells Cathedral, the Wimborne Clock, and others. Was not Pope Sylvester himself, when a priest, the inventor of an improved timepiece? Hence it appears that for nearly six centuries the townsmen have turned their eyes towards that same spot where still the town clock chimes out the fleeting hours.
A word about the Bridport Harbour and its vicissitudes. In early days there were numerous contentions between the citizens and the monks of Caen, who owned the manor of Burton; at other times they were disputing with the Abbot of Cerne or the Prior of Frampton, who apparently wished to debar them from salving their own ships when wrecked outside the harbour. Vessels were small enough to be beached in those days; when ships were increased in size, the Haven was built, in the year 1385, but it proved not such a success as was anticipated. Apparently during most of the next century every county in the south of England was canvassed for subscriptions towards Bridport Harbour; all sorts of expedients were devised to raise money. In 1446 was drawn up a portentous document, still extant, known as an indulgence, granting pardons to all those who should contribute to this object. It was signed by one archbishop, two cardinals, and twelve bishops. Armed with this deed, John Greve, Proctor for the town, started round collecting. He writes a pitiful letter on May Day, 1448, from Dartford, in Kent, detailing how his sub-collector, John Banbury, “sumtime bellman of Lodres,” had decamped with six weeks’ collections, besides stealing his “new chimere of grey black russet, and a crucifix with a beryl stone set therein.” Nor could he find the rogue, for he says, “He took his leave on St. George’s Day, and so bid me farewell, and I have ridden and gone far to seek him—more than forty miles about—and I cannot hear of him.”
A few interesting survivals of old Bridport have come down to modern times in the shape of place-names. “Bucky Doo” passage, between the Town Hall and the “Greyhound,” is suggestive of the rustic rabbit or the rural roebuck; but it is simply the old name, “Bocardo,” originally a syllogism in logic, which was here, as at Oxford, applied to the prison because, just as a Bocardo syllogism always ended in a final negative, so did a compulsory visit to the Bocardo lock-up generally mean a closer acquaintance with the disciplinary use of “the Bridport dagger,” and a final negative to the drama of life. Stake Lane has been altered to Barrack Street in modern times. Gyrtoppe’s House, in Allington, carries us back to the year 1360, when Sir Nicholas Gyrtoppe was Chantry Priest of St. Michael’s, Bridport. It may be mentioned that a pretty but utterly groundless story of the origin of this name has been told, viz., that King Charles II., when a fugitive from Worcester fight, had to “girth up” Miss Juliana Coningsby’s saddle trappings at this spot in 1652: hence the term “girth up.”
Much could be written of the Civil War days concerning this place. How the Roundheads voted £10 (November 29th, 1642) to fortify (!) the town. How the Corporation met, and voted as follows:—
1642, 14th December.—It is agreed that the inhabitants that have muskets shall watch at night in turn; that a watch house shall be erected at each bridge; that eight of the Commoners shall watch at night and eight by day, two at each of the three bridges, one in Stake Lane, and one in Weak’s Lane.
On June 10th, 1643, Lieutenant Lee garrisoned the place for the Parliament; on March 16th following, Captain Pyne, with a party from Lyme, captured the town and took 140 horse. Waller was here six months later (September 24th) raising the posse with 2,000 horse and 1,500 dragoons. Suffice it to say that Bridport preferred to keep as clear as possible from civil turmoil.
As for the romantic story of the escape of Charles II. after the battle of Worcester, and how he was nearly captured here, the reader is referred to Chapter I. for the full account.
The Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion brings us to the end of our interest in Old Bridport. It was on Sunday morning, June 13th, 1685, that the whole place was thrown into a ferment by a surprise attack on the town delivered by three hundred of Monmouth’s rebels from Lyme Regis. Lord Grey commanded them, and after a night march and on arrival at dawn having at the first volley routed the Dorset militia of 1,200 foot with 100 horse, they started making prisoners of the officers who were lodging at the “Bull” hotel. In this latter work, two Dorset men of good family fell victims—Edward Coker and Wadham Strangwayes—being slain by the rebels, who, after the first flush of victory, disregarded ordinary precautions, and when the King’s troops rallied they had to beat an ignominious retreat to Lyme. Judge Jeffreys finished the work by ordering twelve of the condemned rebels to be executed at Bridport. To any student of that period of history the unique collection of autographs, broadsides, songs, and portraits, including the pre-Sedgemoor letter from Lord Dumblane to his father, the Duke of Leeds—all which are contained in the library of Mr. Broadley, of Bridport—are absolutely indispensable.