South Street turns down to the quay near the Greyhound, and in the summer traps will be usually found at this corner to take one down to the sea.
The Literary and Scientific Institute, in East Street, opposite the Bull Hotel, contains a number of coins and some natural history exhibits, as well as a library.
The Conservative Club has been established in a fine old Tudor building in South Street, on the opposite side of which is another ancient house called Dungeness. At the back of a house on the south side of the East Bridge is a portion of the old Hospital of St John. The Bull has been modernised, but it is the Black Bull where George Barnet put up on his return to his native town, in Fellow Townsmen.
Between the Town Hall and the Greyhound is a passage known as Bucky Doo, which the Rev. R. Grosvenor Bartelot traces to "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."
If the pilgrim wishes to make a pleasant excursion on foot to West Bay he must take a track that goes round the churchyard and follow the riverside footpath on the right bank of the stream. Thus we arrive at Bridport Quay and West Bay. The harbour never became of any importance owing to the microscopic shingle which has always obstructed and choked its mouth. Everywhere the pilgrim turns he sees hillocks of this waste sand which has prevented a willing port from serving its country. The fact that Bridport was not called upon to provide any ships either for the siege of Calais in 1347 or for the fleet to oppose the Spanish Armada may be accepted as proof that the burgesses of the town possessed no vessels large enough for fighting purposes. So the little harbour fell into indolence and sluggishness, thus bearing out the truth of the old saying: "That which does not serve dies."
The place is picturesque in an odd and casual way, and a scattering of quaint old dwellings contrast with a row of new lodging-houses which are very showy (rory-tory the Dorset rustic would style them!) in spite of their affectation of the dandy-go-rusty tiles of antiquity. A little group of fishermen may always be seen loafing and smoking by the thatched Bridport Arms Hotel, and the only time these good fellows ever show any quickening to life is when some barque, taking unusual risks, allows itself to be towed and winched between the narrow pier-heads. At such times the spirit of ships and men departed seems to enter into them, and they shout and heave and sing randy-dandy deep-sea songs, and use much profanity.
The shingle is part of one of the remarkable features of the Dorset coast—the Chesil Beach or Chesil Bank, which runs as far as Portland. Chesil is Old English for pebble, the old word being found in Chesilton in Dorset and Chislehurst in Kent. The pebbles gradually grow coarser as one progresses in a south-easterly direction, so that in olden days the smugglers, running their "tubs" ashore, at venture, in the fog or during the night, knew the exact stretch of bank they had arrived on by taking a handful of shingle to examine. The attractions of West Bay are good bathing, good sea fishing and good boating, for the curious little harbour is a particularly pleasing haunt for amateur sailors.
There are many pleasant short walks in the neighbourhood of Bridport and West Bay. Eype is reached from Bridport by field paths passing through Allington and the Lovers' Grove. A bridle-way takes one to Eype church, standing on the ridge, whence it leads through the village down a deep hollow to the beach. Continuing over Thorncombe Beacon, we reach Seatown, which is a seaside branch of Chideock. "Chiddick," as any Wessex man of the soil will pronounce the name, is a little less than a mile inland on the Lyme Regis road. The Anchor Inn at Seatown is an old place of entertainment I have not personally visited, but a man who knows his Dorset informs me that it is a place where the centuries mingle; with black beams in the ceiling, oak settles, shining with long usage, and ironwork full of the rough simplicity of the Elizabethan forge. I shall call there next time I fare Dorset way, if only to stand in the great bay window which looks out to the sea. Such buildings remind one, not of decay but of immutableness. Perhaps even the summons of the dark Reaper would not sound quite so sharp in an ancient inn. There are less perfect places one might die in, and if I had my wish I would choose to pass away in an inn, where all my regrets would be arrested by the stamping of feet on the sanded floor beneath, and the ancient and untutored voices of farmhands and ploughmen singing some lively song.