Call for Bridport to feast on its unique history of rope, net and twine making
HERE’S a free idea for anyone who lives within a few miles of Bridport and can’t wait for Christmas. Rather than have a feast on December 25, arrange one for November 25.
You wouldn’t be doing anything that people locally hadn’t done before, and you might find you enjoyed it even more than they did.
What used to happen was this. November 25 being the feast day of St. Catherine, the patron saint of ropemakers, celebrations were held across the area. In 1856, for example, the Bridport News recorded that the Pymore Mill Company treated their flax and hemp dressers to a meal of roast beef and bread; workers in Bridport went out to The Dolphin.
Now, you might think that a plateful of roast beef and bread is not such an appetising prospect these days as it would have been for poor, hard-working people a century and a half ago.
And you might think there’s something a bit phoney, a bit fey, a bit ersatz, about reviving customs that have long since died out.
I confess that I’ve got reservations myself about the idea of re-inventing traditions. But equally I’ve long been baffled by the fact that the Bridport area doesn’t make more of its history of rope, net and twine making. It’s a history that Richard Sims, in his new book Rope, Net & Twine: The Bridport Textile Industry (Dovecote Press, £25), traces back to the very foundation of Bridport as a Saxon Town in the ninth century. There aren’t many places in Britain that have been shaped for so long by one speciality as Bridport has been by its textile industry. Bridport and its surrounding villages, particularly Loders, are the way they are because of rope, net and twine making. Real physical evidence of the lives of past generations of Dorset people can be seen in homes, gardens, mills, factories, warehouses, and pubs. Pymore Inn, for example, opened in the 1850s to quench the thirst of Pymore Mill workers. It also had a shop to supply them with provisions and save them the walk to Bridport. Mr Sims cites hundreds more instances of development.
So why doesn’t the Bridport area make more of its industrial involvement? I say involvement rather than history because, of course, it’s still going on. There’s AmSafe in Bridport, Huck Nets at Gore Cross, Collins Nets tucked away at Matravers in Uploders, to give just three examples of firms I’ve walked past in the last few days.
Is it perhaps that people are ashamed of it? Because, even though it is still going on, the industry doesn’t have the dominant position that it used to have locally, and it’s linked therefore in people’s minds with unpleasant feelings of decline?
Is it because it’s hard work? Mr Sims notes that fifty years ago firms found it difficult to recruit young workers. But hard work in itself is nothing to be ashamed of.
Is it because it’s felt to be a bosses’ industry? Is there an old lingering feeling that the bosses get the big houses, the workers get the lung diseases? The rewards for all that hard work are unfairly split? Mr Sims details what a very capitalistic industry it’s been.
I don’t know the reason, but I do think that the Bridport area is missing a trick, and it would be good to revive events like the St Catherine’s day feast for local people and for visitors. Such events can be defended against charges of pretence by pointing to the indisputable fact that Bridport’s textile industry is of vast local significance and still going on. Such events connect us to past and present lives.
There is, finally, the possibility of other prizes beyond pleasure and remembrance: more of a different kind of tourism for the Bridport area, and greater prosperity for local people. Dorset’s recently-published cultural strategy for the next five years suggests that the county will – by 2014 – lead the world (yes, lead the world) in the way it places culture at the centre of people’s quality of life. The same document notes that, at the moment, the county’s “offer for tourists in terms of culture is relatively under developed”. Let’s not argue about the strategy’s ambition to lead the world, which I agree sounds ludicrous; let’s imagine for a moment that the numerous organisations in the county that all have signed up to Dorset Strategic Partnership’s cultural vision actually do something about it. Does the Bridport area want to miss out on opportunities to interest people in its history, its architecture, its culture? Bridport has a unique selling point; surely that could and should be developed?
MORE TO FOLLOW ON RICHARD SIMS’ BOOK, INCLUDING PICTURES!
One Response to “Call for Bridport to feast on its unique history of rope, net and twine making”
Thanks for the couple of items on rope,net and twine making in Bridport. I’m investigating my husband’s family history, and noticed a ‘braider’ amongst his forebears in the 19th century who lived in Chideock (and Bridport). Trying to find out what this was I came across your site, and now have a clearer picture of life there. Thanks.
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