The move is announced on the papers’ website but not (that I can see) in the papers themselves.

The shift means the two Newsquest publications will come out on the same morning as the free newspapers View From Bridport, View From Beaminster and View From Lyme Regis.

“The Bridport News and Lyme Regis News moving to Wednesday is purely for operational reasons relating to available press slots,” says Toby Granville, editor of the Dorset Echo, who also oversees the two weeklies.

View From editor Philip Evans comments (via Twitter): “@RealWestDorset By moving to a Wednesday publishing date they lose their only exclusive news day to the View. Great decision – for the View!”

Analysis

Myself, I think there are three things worth remarking on.

One: when the News did first move from Friday to Thursday that was done to compete more directly with View From titles and the Western Gazette (which comes out on Thursdays). Yet I know people who still dislike that shift intensely and refuse, as a matter of principle, to buy the News on a Thursday, because they believe it should still come out on a Friday. That’s a powerful testament to the strength of the connection that the News had with people, and to the force of habit. It’s Friday: it’s Bridport / Lyme Regis News day. Friday was a crucial part of the papers’ brand identity. Changing to a Thursday affected that, but perhaps moving to a Wednesday will not, particularly, because the first move was the one that showed the brand could be tampered with. Like ITV’s News at Ten; there are people who have never seen that in quite the same way since ITV began moving it around…

Another comment via Twitter: “oninbridders @RealWestDorset Bridport News belongs to Friday, a nice way to end the week, sort it out @Dorsetecho. Though at this rate it will loop back”

Two: it will interesting to see what effect it has, three editions of the View From and two editions of the News coming out on the same day, midweek. All sorts of permutations are possible. Good for the View because people might choose to pick up a free paper rather than pay for one that is now covering exactly the same last week? Good for the News because it’s got more pages at the moment than it’s had for years and people might think that a paid-for publication is always going to be superior to a free? Or good for them both because, if you’re in the shop, why not get them both? Neither is going to want to have exactly the same content as the other so they should (in theory) both get better and more various.

Three: and what of the 60p Western Gazette, which fewer people in West Dorset seem to care about these days, despite the best efforts of its local reporter Danielle Hoffman? (It was noticeable, for example, that she turned up for the recent South West Quadrant appeal hearing whereas no one from the News was seen – a situation that people commented upon.) Alas for the Western Gazette, it won’t have much of an “exclusive news day” to itself on Wednesdays because the deadline for its West Dorset edition is late on Tuesday. Oh well.

Postscript

View From Publications are now planning something for Fridays called the View Online Dorset Weekender – “a brand new weekly paper you’ll only be able to read online!”

Technical hitches sorted out, and the British do what they still do in places like Broadwindsor: they form a queue.

VILLAGERS in West Dorset today saw Post Office services brought back to their community after an absence of more than two years.

Broadwindsor has not had a Post Office since December 2007, and the reintroduction of services now is mostly down to members of the local Women’s Institute.

Ruth Yarde of Broadwindsor WI said: “I missed it dreafully. I was very passionate about us having a Post Office again because a lot of people were having to travel elsewhere. But this brings people together. It’s a part of the community and living in a rural area that’s we want – that sense of community.

“I’m feeling very excited and positive, and it’s now down to the village and the surrounding areas to use it well.”

Apart from limited opening hours, there are few obstacles to the new PO outreach service in The Comrades Hall being used. Fellow WI campaigner Jean Frampton said: “There’s a mini-parking area and there’s easy access for people to walk because it’s flat.”

Between them, Mrs Yarde and Mrs Frampton probably put about 200 hours of effort into getting services reinstated.

One villager, who asked not to be named, praised the two women: “They worked tirelessly to find a solution, holding meetings with Oliver Letwin [West Dorset MP] and then later our local district councillor Jacqui Sewell.

“For some time they felt they were banging their heads against a brick wall. If it had not been for their terrier-like persistence, we would not be in the position we are now.

“It really was people power.

“The village hall committee is letting the parish council have the hall for a reduced fee and then the parish council is claiming it back through grant funding which has come via West Dorset District Council and Dorset Community Action.

“The village hall committee is also meeting the cost of a phone line in the hall.”

Broadwindsor parish council chairman Peter Hardwill said: “The benefit for the whole community of having this facility will be in bringing people out, meeting each other, talking.”   

Broadwindsor resident Wendy Shields agreed: “It’s absolutely marvellous.”

A full range of services will now be offered between 10am and 12.30am every Tuesday and Friday in the Comrades Hall. The new outreach service will be run from Bridport Post Office. Sub Postmaster Graham Burridge says he will be offering everything that the former Post Office offered and more, including postage, wrapping materials, financial services, foreign currency and a selection of stationery.

Tuesays and Fridays have been chosen because on those days The Comrades Hall is used by various groups. Coffee mornings are also planned and the local Police Community Support Officer will be holding his monthly surgeries at the hall to coincide with the Post Office service. The mobile library visits Broadwindsor every other Friday morning in the Square meaning that people using the library can then just walk up to the hall to use the Post Office services.

West Dorset District Council Leader Robert Gould said: “The situation in Broadwindsor has been less than ideal for the past two years. Some people without cars have had to go to Beaminster on the bus to visit the Post Office and there can be a wait of up to three hours for the return bus. I’m so pleased with what we have all achieved.”

Broadwindsor has shown how determination and joined up thinking can benefit local communities, said Cllr Gould.

Note: They might need the same sort of qualities in Portesham because the Dorset Echo today has a story saying the Post Office there may soon be closed, as the couple in charge at the moment are retiring.

I suppose it’s true these days that there might be girls and women who genuinely prefer pasta or even rice or cous-cous… and I can think of men who don’t mind eating these potato-substitutes (sometimes), but their inner Homer Simpson soon goes back to craving spuds.

They are irresistible and fascinating, hence:

And it’s just before Valentine’s Day…

One of the organisers is Brian Hesketh, who’s expecting Drimpton’s third annual potato day to be busy: “We have been quite surprised how well supported it was on the first two occasions, it seems to be meeting a need.”

Mr Hesketh has his own gardening blog covering the Dorset / Somerset borderlands near Drimpton (click here to link). “As gardeners,” he writes, in a philosophical moment, “we are amongst the stewards of Nature’s Life Support Systems, offering up not just tasty lunch time snacks, but also practical examples of sustainable methods, environmental awareness and harmonious living with nature.”

He publishes lots of appealing photographs, including this, an orb-like turnip amidst diamonds of ice: 

“Much easier to dig up than parsnips,” comments Mr Hesketh, as proved by this picture:

Which made me think of a fabulous essay by John  Carey, called “Vegetable Gardening” in Original Copy (Faber, 1987). He writes about how “it’s an immense and exacting pleasure to grow” parsnips, and continues:

“Come the summer, you pull out all but one of the seedlings from each cluster – pale gold pencils, with feathery tops, which it always gives you a pang to throw on a compost heap, though there’s nothing else to be done with them.

“Then, as the winter approaches, the great spreading leaves of the survivors rot and yellow, and the parsnips withdraw into their subterraranean existence until, some time after Christmas, the time comes to crack the frosty crust over them and lug them out gross, whiskered and reeking, from their lairs.”

Isn’t that fantastic? Especially the last bit. If there’s a better passage ever been written about parsnips, I’ve yet to read it!

One final thing I would love to know if anyone has the answer: Why do parsnips sold dirty taste better than ones sold clean?

The proposed “regeneration” of the area, which includes St Michael’s Trading Estate, is going to be fought over at an appeal hearing in West Bay in January.

If landowners Haywards get approval for their scheme, which was first drawn up with West Dorset District Council, it will have a bigger effect on Bridport than any development since the 1970s.

Forty-three letters went to the Planning Inspectorate. One – from the Highways Agency – raised no objections provided certain conditions were met. The rest were all opposed.

To help round off 2009, and to carry us through into 2010, here are a few of the most eye-catching bits.       

“This fake new utopia”

Alan Ross of Burton Bradstock writes: “Should this development go ahead, my wife and I will never visit Bridport again, taking our business to places of character such as Beaminster!”

The letter is also signed – you’ll be relieved to hear – by Mrs Susan Ross. (I didn’t like to think of her being unilaterally barred by her husband from visiting her nearest town… But as it stands, that’s what you call a resolution.)

Mr and Mrs Ross say they object to the idea of Bridport becoming a clone town, yet another victim of the process which sees a vibrant artistic area created, then developers cash in, wipe the slate clean, and cram in houses, “outpricing this fake new utopia to the local people who were instrumental in building, and had pride in, their inter-reliant community.”

“A sterile town”

Antonia Fraser, Pymore: “Many of us think that what is being proposed at present will turn Bridport into a sterile town with smart shops and bijoux cafes of the kind found in the South East of England.

“The alternative is that Bridport retains its authentic Dorset character, rooted in its artisan base.”

“It is honest, it is human and it is real”

Rex Johnson, Nettlecombe: “St Michael’s trading estate is a trading estate and is bound to look a little shabby in places. SO WHAT?

“I find the current and ongoing mania for tidying everything up disturbing, totally distasteful and utterly superficial.

“Bridport is an historic and characterful market town and a characterful, shabby trading estate is very much a part of that.

“It is honest, it is human and it is real.

“The very last thing I would wish to see happen to St Michael’s trading estate is for it to be transformed into yet another Poundbury…”

THREE DAYS before Beaminster Tunnel first opened to the world in June 1832, one of the men working on it died.

William Aplin, a labourer, was killed by “a quantity of earth falling on him in widening the road under Hornhill, this side of the tunnel” [that is, the Beaminster side].

The fatal spot was marked by a stone with a white cross painted on it, about fifty yards up from the entrance to Horn Park House.

For years it’s been difficult to see this memorial, such is the muck and debris that these days accumulates at the side of busy roads, and so fast do vehicles now travel.

But as part of the work to repair the Tunnel, which comes to an end this weekend, Dorset County Council has cleaned up the stone and the surrounding verge.

These days roadside memorials to people who have lost their lives along them are quite common. Is this simple tribute to William Aplin the first of its kind in Dorset?

When it was built in 1831-32, there was a lot of unemployment in Dorset. According to the 1831 census, Beaminster Tunnel provided jobs for 50 out of the 70 non-agricultural labourers in Beaminster. When they were  taken on, The Western Flying Post noted at the time, their faces “seemed to brighten at the prospect of earning their own bread instead of being degraded paupers.” Poor William Aplin must have been so looking forward to celebrating the completion of the tunnel.

Because it was a tremendous occasion, the day it opened. A flag bearer and two bands led the way, and a procession nearly half a mile long marched up from Beaminster to Horn Hill, where a 21-gun salute was fired. Spectators numbered about 9,000. There was a fair on Horn Hill, and a hot air balloon ascended from a field near Beaminster.

Labourers were paid a bonus of two shillings and sixpence, much of which was spent in the town’s 16 pubs. The day ended with fireworks let off from the church tower.

Nothing so spectacular is planned for this weekend, when the Tunnel is due to reopen after five weeks of repair work and improvements. Beaminster town councillors are going for a look round on Saturday morning, and a few final jobs and checks need to be done. The picture below shows surveyors taking measurements of how high the tunnel now is internally, with new tarmac laid and a new lighting-rig up along the roof. Nobody wants to see any lorries crashing into the sides or the ceiling.

“PEOPLE really do enjoy coming to Beaminster and I’m constantly hearing feedback that suggests that Beaminster is the buzz town of West Dorset and certainly this region. It’s good. It’s exciting.”

So says Deborah (‘Debs’) Moxhay, owner of Strummer Pink. For anyone who’s known Beaminster for a while, the idea of it being “the buzz town” of anywhere seems incredible, so incredible that actually it might just be true.

After all, this “classic Wessex market town” was recently picked out in The Sunday Times as somewhere that was “fast becoming a food hotspot”, partly because of Masterchef winner Mat Follas and his restaurant The Wild Garlic. Now, just five doors down from there, comes Strummer Pink.

Colour? Shop? Business? Brand? Homage to Clash singer Joe Strummer? Mini arts-centre? Lurcher?

All these and more, just about. Joe Strummer died the day before Debs picked up her dog as a puppy, and the breeder, a Clash fan, was in tears. So, Debs’ dog is called Strummer… and Strummer Pink is the name that is going to be painted outside Debs’ new venture, one day.

“The weather’s been so horrible recently that the thought of sending somebody up a ladder and painting a sign outside has been not a very nice idea, so that it’s just a slab of pink right now.”

The shop is West Country Interiors as was, where Debs worked before for about five years.

“I’m quite a people person, I get attracted by people and so I tend to think ‘Oh, I like that, what are they doing over there, how can I get involved in that?’ and then it just happens… Nothing particularly has ever been planned – so here we are!

“I’ve lived in West Dorset for about 12 years, and when I got here I realised that it actually said on my birth certificate that I was born here, which I’d sort of forgotten about. It was quite a surprise…

Deborah Moxhay of Strummer Pink

“West Dorset is like coming home, I just love it so much, the landscape and the people, and the fact that you always find interesting things and people down at the end of a track, and nobody really talks about it that much, except, extraordinary things happen…

“I’ve been lucky enough to work with interesting people and I now run my own venture which is really exciting.”

She pinpoints the mix of people in West Dorset as a key economic driver. “I think there’s a lot of really interesting people that have landed in West Dorset and people that have gone away and had a life and done interesting things and they’ve come back here and people are interested and they are looking for things that are a little bit different and why not give it to them? It’s just something’s unusual.      

“I’m also in the New Year wanting to start some classes, use it as a venue for meditation, yoga, life drawing, linocuts, things like that, just to get people in, and that will be a really nice base, I hope, for the people of Beaminster to come in and use. It will be more like an arts centre, although not, because of its size, but that’s the idea, to make it more interesting for people.”

Until November 28 Strummer Pink is exhibiting artworks by Aviva Halter-Hurn and her father Roman. Aviva is now best known locally for her pictures of birds and animals but this show also includes some fine earlier work in a different style, such as Insomniac.

NOTE: my own pet theory is that Strummer Pink is a sign of a wider cultural shift in West Dorset. The Times recently described Bridport as “very civilised… intellectual and rather hippyish” but I think the far west of the county is ceasing to be as hippyish as it once undoubtedly was in favour of becoming post-punk. Or is this wishful thinking?

Pilsdon is a Christian refuge for people with broken lives, set up in 1958 by a clergyman who wanted to reinvent the 17th century community called Little Gidding (the inspiration for one of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets.)

Tobias Jones first stayed at Pilsdon a while back and his experiences there are written up in Chapter 5 of his book Utopian Dreams: A Search for a Better Life (Faber, 2007). It’s a book that always struck me as an odd mixture of tortuous and superficial. At one point Jones writes: “It’s mind-blowing the number of communities there are just within a few dozen miles of here [Pilsdon]: Monkton Wilds, Othona, Tinkers Bottom, Gaunts House, Magdalen House, Hillfield”. I remember thinking, ok, but for a start you’ve got the names of Monkton Wyld and Hilfield spelt wrong… and should Magdalen House actually be Magdalen Farm, and Tinkers Bottom Tinkers Bubble? I wasn’t sure.

 But clearly Jones wasn’t just a tourist. He ends his chapter on Pilsdon by writing: “It’s a place with a radical simplicity, which comes at a stark price. It costs, as Eliot wrote in ‘Little Gidding’, ‘not less than everything’.” Moving with your wife and two small daughters to a wood suggests to me that Jones is putting everything into what he believes. Good luck to him.

You can read a very good piece by Tobias Jones in The Guardian by clicking on this link. And about his move in The Yorkshire Post by clicking here.

 While Pilsdon’s website is here.

ON EVERY page of the new Drimpton Village Voices book Who Were We? there’s something that catches the eye. The question that’s asked about cider comes on a page that (I swear) I opened at random.

Page 303 – which records the life of a woman called Susan Jeffery who actually leaves Drimpton in the early 1860s to  live on Ham Hill in Somerset, where Ham Stone comes from. Susan sets herself up as a laundress. “But of more interest is her growing family,” writer Andrew Pastor notes. By 1880 she has nine sons, but there’s no sign of any husband or live-in partner.

“What should we think? What can we say? Should it matter? It is just that we wonder who the fathers are, for surely there has to be more than one. Were the neighbouring women of Ham Hill at ease with Susan in their midst? Most of them were living conventional lives. They had acquired husbands and most managed to keep them. Among her neighbours in 1871 there had been no single men. Among them in 1881, there were none either.

“Surely, some of the wives must have looked at their husbands and wondered at the very least. These men, stonecutters and masons, were doing heavy, physical work which no doubt helped them work up a thirst. Who knows what a man who has drunk a lot of cider might get up to? Susan, now aged 40, was still attractive – or was she simply welcoming?”

This short section reveals a lot about Who Were We? It is, for a start, a brilliant book – the best local history book I’ve seen for many years. It’s been written by Andrew Pastor, but his use of the first-person plural (What can we say?… we wonder…) isn’t just a stylistic affectation. It reflects the enormous team effort that’s gone into researching this book, and the way that team members have thought about the people whose lives they have been investigating. Census returns (1871, 1881, etc) have provided basic details, supplemented wherever possible by other sources of information (eg, local newspapers, court records, museums…) Where need be, researchers have gone beyond county boundaries (and national borders).

But the key thing about this book is this: researchers have also used their imaginations, to interpret and to speculate and to try to bring people back to life: to reintroduce them to us in a humane and fascinating way. That’s one reason for the book’s subtitle: “Connecting the lives of a 19th century Dorset community”.  That means connecting those lives to us – posing questions to us (What should we think?). It also means seeking to recreate how people’s lives then were connected, even if it’s sometimes difficult or even impossible to work out exactly how they were, as with the puzzles over the identities of Susan Jeffery’s paramours.

Dorset in the 19th century was different. In the video clip coming up, Andrew Pastor pulls out of the quiet surrounding his Drimpton home some of the noise and grind of the past: you can watch the video by clicking on the link in the next line.

Andrew Pastor on YouTube

One of the things Mr Pastor refers to is that Drimpton - which now has just one farm – once had several. The photograph below shows, on the far right, what’s reckoned to be farmer Alfred Ben, dressed up for a wedding in 1902.

It’s a very striking picture, for all sorts of reasons: the whiskers, the top hats, the watch chains, the stillness and self-possession of the two old men, the stiff black shine of the women’s dresses, the almost military assurance of the woman on the left… But they all seem, behind the fence, to know that there’s a barrier between them and the future, whereas the girl in white, not so much in focus in front of the fence, seems ready to step up towards the camera, into the 20th century, towards us. She will grow into better definition; she knows what things were like, and she will seek to make them different again.

I am very grateful to Drimpton Village Voices for permission to reproduce a selection of photographs from Who Were We? Others include an extraordinary picture of 

Netherhay’s oldest resident round about 1908, Ann Hallson, who was then 95. Counting backwards, that means she would have been born during the Napoleonic Wars, in about 1813, before the Battle of Waterloo.

Ann was – it’s thought – a domestic servant, then a flax spooler  at Yarn Barton in Broadwindsor, then a flax winder and a handloom weaver, and then, finally, a pauper. She is listed in the 1881 census as “kept by parish”. Her fortunes fell as those of her neighbours rose. Andrew Pastor notes that her neighbours in Broadwindsor High Street now included “agricultural labourers, of course, but also factory workers, a dairyman, a thatcher, a master baker, a dressmaker, a stonemason, a cordwainer and his shoemaking  apprentice, as well as Police Constable Custard and his family.

“Did Ann smile at the sound of his name?”

Perhaps, in the 1880s, she did, but this picture, remember, was taken circa 1908, by which time Ann had moved to Netherhay, and you wonder – looking at this – what it would take to make her smile now. Her hands seem to retain the memory of decades of hard work – look at her index finger edging forwards – but her face seems closed-up and impassive and her clothes seem to enshroud her.

She had a child, back in the 1830s, but never seems to have married.

Andrew Pastor devotes three pages to her. He writes, finally: “She has made her way through life in a family where the women have looked out for and cared for each other as best they were able to…

“Deprivation and poverty cannot weaken family solidarity. In fact, they may have strengthened it.”

THERE are two chapters in this book on Dorset and they get off to a cracking start: “Dorset has a northern fringe that scarcely seems to belong to it at all, a chalky, dusty hinterland that gathers itself suddenly in a wild surge up to the heights of Shaftesbury” –  yes, that’s so true. You may disagree, but places like Gillingham and Bourton always seem to me to belong more to the A303 than they do to Dorset. The real interest of the county lies elsewhere:

In the memorable lines of the Cerne Abbas giant, for example, before which Payne comments: “Dorset tries hard to be respectable… but the county never quite manages to be respectable.”

Or the lines engraved outside Blandford Town Hall (Blandford was rebuilt in the 18th century after being almost completely destroyed by fire. Chief re-builders were John and William Bastard):

Recipe for regeneration;

take one careless

tallow chandler and

two ingenious Bastards.

(Regeneration has always been controversial.) 

Or the lines of religious dissenters who spraggled across Dorset and beyond to their lowly, and often deliberately obscure, chapels. Dorset, writes Payne, “and indeed the whole West Country, is a hot-bed of non-conformity”. He’s good throughout this whole book on unfashionable but fascinating sects – Congregational, Unitarian, Methodist, Baptist, Moravian – and as part of this theme he deals, rather unexpectedly, in his Traditional Dorset chapter, with the Loughwood Meeting House in Devon, west of Axminster. Nowadays it’s not far from the A35, but when built by Baptists in the 17th century it was much more remote. Its “isolated spot reflects the social and religious isolation felt by the 219 members of the congregation who sought refuge there in 1653… Eventually Loughwood was to become the mother church for Baptists meeting at Chard in Somerset, Lyme Regis in Dorset and Honiton in Devon… The National Trust booklet available at the chapel notes that persecution was especially harsh in the years 1684-88, when ‘men and women were ostracised, ridiculed, imprisoned, transported and sometimes killed’… Not until 1688, when William of Orange was invited to take over from James II in the so-called Glorious (and bloodless) Revolution, were acts passed by parliament granting freedom of worship to non-conformists.” It’s a weirdly persistent myth that the Glorious Revolution was bloodless; Payne himself, remember, has just been talking about Baptists sometimes being killed. To quote a piece by Bernard Bailyn in the current New York Review of Books, “Death and devastation were everywhere, not only in the cities but in the countryside as well.”

A Victorian view of four of the Tolpuddle Martyrs

Payne’s word “transported” is also resonant. Later he writes about the six Tolpuddle Martyrs, transported to Australia in 1834 for setting up the Tolpuddle Grand Lodge of the Agricultural Labourers Friendly Society and for swearing an oath of loyalty to each other. Five of the Martyrs were Methodists, two of them lay-preachers. Payne thinks it’s “sad that the names of the twelve labourers transported to Australia after the Swing Riots in Dorset [1830 agricultural riots] have not been kept in the general memory, while those of the men of Tolpuddle have been kept in the public consciousness ever since.”   

So, all in all, this is a thought-provoking book, well-written and sturdily produced. It has errors – Mary Anning was not born in 1811, but 1799 - and it has faults – the photographs are disappointing. One picture of the annual Tolpuddle Martyrs festival shows what could be David Partridge, check-shirted stalwart of the Bridport Peace and Justice Group and the Saturday morning queue for the Bridport Country (WI) Market, but the reproduction is so bad it’s impossible to be sure. But still, this book is well worth reading, for it does have some very unusual elements, such as an account of a trip to Netherhay Chapel near Drimpton (north of Broadwindsor, north-west of Beaminster). Hardly anybody ever writes about Drimpton, yet Payne goes there to hear the Purbeck Quire and modern-day Methodists happily singing old hymns:

I have fought my way through

I have finished the work

Thou didst give me to do

Note: John Payne visited The Book Shop in South Street, Bridport, in September, and more about his visit and about his book can be read by clicking on this link. In his book, Payne refers to Bridport, “with its Arts Centre and its Local Food Centre,” as  “a phoenix rising from centuries of decline.”

The Wild Garlic scored near-perfect marks in the Pro vs Punter section of the influential monthly food magazine Olive, published by the BBC.

Mr Follas’s overall mark of 56 out of a possible 60 beat well-known names such as Richard Corrigan, whose Mayfair restaurant in London scored 48 points, and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Canteen near Axminster, which scored 44.

Olive’s professional critic was Gregg Wallace, a judge on the BBC’s MasterChef competition. He was (unsurprisingly) recognised by Mr Follas and his staff, but the former greengrocer turned cookery writer did not let on as to why he was really there.

In the December issue of Olive, he gets off to a bad start by calling Beaminster a “village” but he clearly knows what he’s talking about when it comes to eating out: “Service is very friendly, as befits a busy neighbourhood restaurant. It has the feeling of a friend’s extended dining room. Staff know their menu, and seem to be enjoying themselves every bit as much as the customers.

“There is something really quite refreshing about being served by people with constant grins on their faces – you can’t fake this sort of enthusiasm.”

His overall verdict: “The Wild Garlic is buzzy and busy, a fun place serving good, honest food.

“The wine list is full of real bargains, too. The food, although well prepared, could be a little smarter. If this was MasterChef I’d say Mat needs to work on his presentation.”

MasterChef winner Mat Follas (left) with judge Gregg Wallace

The second critic, the punter, was Dorset food-lover Jane Colston, who normally eats out once a week, and whose guilty pleasure is Honeybuns’ cakes (made in Holwell near Sherborne). She gives the Beaminster restaurant top marks for food, atmosphere and service.

She wrote: “We left feeling like old friends and valued customers. The Wild Garlic is a comfortable, welcoming and informal place to meet friends and enjoy well cooked, beautifully presented food at very fair prices.”

Mr Follas, who only took up professional cooking when he opened the restaurant six months ago, said he was overwhelmed by the praise.

He went on: “I really had no idea that Gregg was down to do a review, I thought he was visiting just to see how one of the former MasterChef guys was getting along.

“He really never let on. But what can you say? It’s very flattering to get such high scores that you beat some incredible restaurants.

“The great thing is we took a gamble and went for the food I believed in, which is good honest local rustic food. It sounds like a bit of a cliché but it just happens to be the truth.

“And we really didn’t want to go down the full silver service route. We wanted good service but we wanted it in a relaxed atmosphere and I think people enjoy that more.”

The Wild Garlic is based in the old building in the north-west corner of Beaminster Square that used to house Pickwick’s and The Black Cat. It was standing empty before Mr Follas took it over and transformed its fortunes. Beaminster is now gaining more national publicity.

The Olive review comes just weeks after The Guardian’s restaurant critic Matthew Norman awarded the eatery 9.5 out of 10.

He wrote in his Saturday magazine column: “All in all, this was one of the most pleasing meals I’ve eaten in years, served with warmth and expertise by a dramatically moustachioed waiter… Follas is an exceedingly rare talent.

“Nothing the programme could ever accomplish could compensate for unleashing Loyd Grossman on this island but MasterChef should be very proud of itself indeed.”

Notes: 

Gregg Wallace’s meal

Starter: Brill and mackerel ceviche with accompanying salad of wild herbs. “The fish was fresh with a nice lemon-citrus tang, although I would have preferred it sliced a little thinner…[the salad] was great – a different taste sensation in every mouthful.”
Main: Sika venison with a rowan and blackberry sauce and smoked mash potato. “[The venison was] well cooked…[rowan and blackberry sauce] delicious…[smoked mashed potato] splendidly original… chunky pieces of carrot and courgette… could easily have been made to look more refined.”
Pudding: Four sticky sweet puddings. “Rich with quality chocolate…a gooey, messy delight…a seriously indulgent mess of cream and berries was also irresistible.”
The bill for four people, including a bottle of Champagne (£40), three bottles of wine (£122), four brandies, and service, came to £295.
Overall mark: 26/30

Jane Colston’s meal

Starter: Goat’s cheese salad. “Prettiest, most flavour packed salad I have ever tasted.”
Main: Fennel, thyme and vine tomato gratin. “Delicious.”
Pudding: Orange and almond cake. “Squidgy and packed with flavour.”
The bill for two people, including two coffees and a bottle of wine, came to £63.
Overall mark: 30/30.

Matthew Norman’s meal

Starter: Pan-fried garlic scallops. “Three plump beauties… the pricing of both food and wine is without chutzpah… came alluringly browned, and with absurdly delicious miso-infused seaweed.”
Main: Sika venison with a rowan and blackberry sauce and smoked mash potato. “[The venison was] sensationally tender and flavoursome…[the mash] fluffy, creamy potato suffused with a hickory, mesquitish twang.”
Pudding: Fresh berry mess. “Magnificent.”
Overall mark: 9.5/10