Was Bridport’s oldest building really a lighthouse?

THE oldest and perhaps the oddest place you can stay in Bridport is the Chantry, down South Street. It’s let out by the Vivat Trust who mention in passing that it may once have been a primitive lighthouse…

This suggestion is oft-repeated but no one – until recently – ever seems to have stopped and thought: Hang on a minute, how on earth would that work? It doesn’t look like a lighthouse – it’s more than a mile from the sea – where would the light have gone – who would have seen it – and how would they have used it?

Such questions have now been answered in a beautifully simple way by the Chickerell-based Dorset coastal historian, Gordon Le Pard.

First, a quick bit of background. The Chantry dates from about 1300. In those days Bridport’s harbour was close to the medieval town, up the River Brit. Firelight from the top of the Chantry could have acted as a guide.

Bright fire could have burned in an iron fire basket on top of a pole fixed to the south side of the Chantry. On the south side there is an odd-shaped corbel, with “a small round socket in the center of its upper face… aligned beneath a larger circular cut-out in the projecting offset course at second floor level.” This is where a pole would fit. (Archaeologist KA Rodwell surveyed these features in detail; click here to read more from her).      

Anyway, when a new Bridport Harbour was created down at the mouth of the River Brit (where West Bay now is), it seems the Chantry still served as a lighthouse.

So how did it work? This is the clever bit.

Gordon Le Pard notes that two reefs lie just offshore from West Bay, the Ram to the west and the Pollock to the east. They could be dangerous; in the 17th century, the Ram wrecked an armed merchantman, whose remains still linger on the seabed.

Now look at this diagram, which takes into account the historic positions of the East and West cliffs at West Bay, and how they would block the view from sea towards the Chantry:

As Mr Le Pard says: “If you draw lines between the Chantry and the present East Cliff it marks the edge of the Ram, if between the Chantry and the approximate former location of the West Cliff, it marks the edge of the Pollock.

“So a captain steering for Bridport Harbour only had to keep the Chantry in view to avoid either of the reefs.”

Isn’t that smart?

One other thing. When the Chantry was adapted to serve as a priest’s house, one of the priest’s duties was to say regular masses to St Katherine.

Mr Le Pard comments: “St Katherine is the dedication of both the chapel at Abbotsbury, built as a sea mark, as well as the only certain medieval lighthouse on St Catherine’s Down on the Isle of Wight.”

No one will ever know for sure whether the Chantry was a lighthouse as well as a sea mark, but Mr Le Pard finds the evidence he has amassed “especially pleasing” – and so (I think) should all the rest of us.

You can find out more about Mr Le Pard’s research in the latest volumes (numbers 129 & 130) of the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, that is the society which runs the excellent Dorset County Museum in Dorchester.