Bridport Arts Centre shifting to Savage Ground
THE first phase of the redevelopment of Bridport Art Centre begins next Monday (August 9).
Sturminster Newton firm Jordan & Faber will repaint the Grade II Listed façade in Farrow & Ball’s Savage Ground, a kind of neutral stoney colour. Architectural features will be picked out in a slightly darker hue.
An old watercolour has been used as a guide to the building’s appearance back in the 1830s; it used to be a Wesleyan Chapel. It never used to be pink.
Contractors will also relay paving stones and generally smarten the place up.
Director Lindsay Brooks said: “We are very aware that the Arts Centre not only plays a key role culturally but also architecturally in Bridport. The building has not been redecorated for several years so is certainly showing its age. We’re so grateful that our fundraising has been supported so generously, enabling us to create a smarter forecourt area.”
The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel that is now Bridport Arts Centre. Soon it will look more austerely like its former self.
After studying the building’s original appearance in 1830s engravings, Arts Centre staff have decided to do away with the permanently planted areas out the front. They want the forecourt to become a more open, useable space for Bridport.
They will be recycling the plants already there and they are working with Bridport Town Council, and Community Orchard members, to create some mobile plant containers from recycled timber.
Work should be finished by Sunday, September 26, in time for the Arts Centre members party – and just a few days before the departure of current director Lindsay Brooks. Getting redevelopment work done against a background of cuts will mean she leaves on a high.
* There’s an evocative photo of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in the 1950s here.
** I remember The Daily Telegraph’s diary, and then the Western Daily Press and then possibly the Bridport News, round about September / October 1993, ran pieces about how Bridport Arts Centre was the mystery building in a poem by John Betjeman. I might even have written the Bridport News piece myself, but I can’t for the life of me remember what the poem was. If anybody else can remember, please get in touch. It would be good to know again.