Posts from the ‘Books’ category

Praise for history of Bridport rope and net making

There are few, if any, other places in Britain that have been shaped for so long by one industry as Bridport has been by rope, net and twine. The trade probably dates back to the ninth century. Read Mr Sims detailed book and you’ll never look at Bridport and its surrounding villages in quite the same way ever again.

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CAMRA West Dorset pub guide published

YOU KNOW the scenario – you’ve arrived in a place you don’t know well and you need to find a fine pint of real ale –…

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A walk on Eype beach

Let’s walk. Underfoot the scrunchy pea gravel scrapes and squeaks. Sudden patches of sand give relief to legs already wearied by trudging on banked and sliding stones. Look closer underfoot – individual pebbles lucent with seawater

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Philip Larkin’s verdict on Weymouth: “delicious”

IN JULY 1953 Philip Larkin stayed at the Royal Hotel on Weymouth seafront. He came on holiday with his mother Eva and was often mistaken for her…

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Found on Chesil Beach wearing women’s underwear

In the latest issue of the London Review of Books, the essayist Stefan Collini reviews a new book by Jeremy Lewis, Shades of Greene: One Generation of…

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Lyme Regis fossil hunter Mary Anning acclaimed as top British scientist – and secret inspiration for John Fowles

THE LYME REGIS fossil hunter Mary Anning has been named by the Royal Society as the third most influential female scientist in British history. The move…

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Celebrating “matchless Lyme / In all the wild luxuriance of rhyme”

HERE are some short extracts from The Lymiad, a series of eight verse letters written from Lyme Regis in 1818, never before published in their entirety,…

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Dorset potter Tim Hurn on “a romantic process”

THERE’S a superb photograph of the Bettiscombe potter Tim Hurn in a new book coming out next month. It shows Tim carefully reaching out from the mouth of…

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Subscribers wanted for The Lymiad. Hand over £20, get your name in it

LYME REGIS Philpot Museum’s Trustees have issued an unusual invitation: to subscribe to the first publication of The Lymiad, or Letters from Lyme to A Friend at…

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“The deep country is no longer a secret”: West Dorset revealed from the Osismii to Johnnie Boden

Review of Wytherston: A History of a Dorset Settlement, by T.P. Connor (£10, from www.wytherston.com) WYTHERSTON is a hamlet about four miles north-east of Bridport. You…

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