The Old Riverside Cafe and West Bay Post Office. Courtesy of Keith Alner.

The Post Office was busy and the Cafe was mostly used by holidaymakers staying on the municipal camping ground, and coach parties from Dorchester, Yeovil, Chard, and Taunton. Locals enjoyed playing dominoes there.

A wider view. Courtesy of Keith Alner.

March 12, 2010, and West Bay no longer even has a Post Office while the Riverside – now a restaurant – serves a lot more than the crab sandwiches, cream teas and roast dinners that it used to specialise in. Nowadays it has an international reputation.

Arthur and Jan Watson took over in 1964. Earlier this year, the Bridport and District Tourism Association gave Arthur an award for his lifelong services to tourism. Just think how many people he and Jan have made happy…

Arthur Watson with his award

Arthur Watson

Congratulations to them both, and to their team!

You can read a pdf of the Golden Jubilee Riverside Times, and see lots of great pictures, (including – and this is important – some of Jan!), by clicking on this link.

So concludes a recent reflective blog entry by Samuel Cooper, a research student at the University of Sussex, who lectured in February on ‘The Situationist International and its British Fallout’ at Marsh Barn just outside Bridport.

Situationism at Marsh Barn, Bridport: "Is there a fault with reality?"

Mr Cooper was, in short, giving one of the Lectures About Everything organised by Horatio and Ioana Morpurgo.

You can see why a D Phil student obsessed with ‘a forgotten period of avant-garde activity’ (British Situationism since 1967) would regard Marsh Barn as a surprising place to encounter people who were not only enthused by his overview of such subjects as the Angry Brigade and Punk but had themselves been engaged in ‘proximate activity’ (a 68er, a workplace activist, a wobbly, a trade unionist,  a road protestor and others). But that’s  the appeal of this part of the world…

A ‘wobbly’, incidentally, is Mr Cooper’s term: I have got no idea what it means. If I’d been there, I would have asked him, but I wasn’t and I’m sorry I missed it.

In return for Mr Cooper explaining to me what on earth a ‘wobbly’ is, I could have told him that the ex-Special Branch man who cracked the Angry Brigade now lives in Bridport. As I was saying, it is that kind of place…    

Anyway, if you too missed the lecture, and you want to read Mr Cooper’s notes, you can click on this link here; or if you want read his reflections on his Marsh Barn experience, you can click on this link here.

*Situationism began in 1958 as a radical French philosophy heavily influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism. It sought a “REVOLUTION of everyday life”, most famously through the events of May 1968 in Paris, immortalised in graffiti such as: “Do not adjust your mind, there is a fault with reality” and “Be realistic. Demand the impossible”.

Brian, Elliott and Gloria Dodge, of The Market House, Bridport, with Palmers Head Brewer Darren Batten

DAVID Graham of On In Bridders – whose purpose is to support, develop, and promote Bridport’s social scene - has written a very thoughtful and observant account of his preview tour of The Market House in West Street.

“Very impressed,” is his overall verdict, although he notes there’s no Wi-Fi, a detail which actually serves to reinforce his overall theme of how people’s expectations of pubs have changed because of factors like the rise of Wetherspoons, and the smoking ban.

He also comments on the apparent removal of disco lighting. He’s got a sharp eye, Mr Graham! You can read all of what he has to say by clicking on this link here.

He’s also put up lots of photographs which you can see by clicking on this link here. 

The Market House opens on Wednesday, March 10, in West Street, Bridport.

The Market House, Bridport: "The sort of place that I would take my Mother for lunch."

PURELY in the interests of informing the readers of this site what-is-what, I managed to bluff my way through the security cordons and gain admittance to the new Market House pub in Bridport this morning.

I must have been in luck because I not only did I get in, but I managed to down a pint before the mounted police arrived. So, all-in-all a fairly successful outing around the town.

Now, whatever you might be expecting from the successor to the Royal Oak, you would be wrong: it is much better than I, or you, would have dreamed possible. In fact I shall go back, even when I can’t blag myself one on the house and that is saying something when it comes from the town’s premier soak, bore and general down-at-heel undesirable.

In fact it is the sort of place that I would take my Mother for lunch and that is saying something since the old girl usually forgets her teeth along with her cheque book, so I normally end up getting stumped for the whole lot.

The décor is attractive and yet strangely unobtrusive, I might say if I were writing for some poncey colour supplement, but I’m not, so I’ll just tell you that it looks pretty good on the inside. In fact it looks better in there than it does from the outside when you’ve got your nose pressed up against the windows trying to sneak a peep.

The prices are surprising as well: pretty much in line with what others charge - and a good deal less than a fair few – for the wallop, and the grub looks to be pretty much in-line with other nosh houses that don’t exactly stick their fodder in a trough and supply you with a sheet of newspaper to eat off.

It opens on Wednesday and I shall be stepping in there at some time for a drop of IPA, so don’t forget to greet me with the traditional line: “You are The Red Bladder, what are you having?”

Editor’s Note: The Red Bladder was attending an event organised for Palmers Brewery by Watershed PR, which company is run by the wife of the editor of this site. I have made some minor changes to punctuation, but otherwise the Red Bladder’s words and opinions are entirely his own (as they always are).

West Bay: On top of a pot sits a Nautilus float (British Made, it says on top of the float)

DAVE SALES, a shellfisherman for over fifty years, has worked the Dorset Coast from Poole to West Bay.

In the course of his long career, he has experienced many changes in the industry.

He has been a member of the Southern Sea Fisheries Committee for more than forty years and studied the fishing industry in the US and Canada as a Churchill Fellow.

He is an adviser to the British Government on inshore fisheries. His work for the conservation of fish stocks, especially the lobster, has contributed to the minimum catch size gradually being increased.

With the recent introduction of the no take rule for berried hen lobsters in our area, the future of stocks should be assured.

He will discuss the new Marine Protected Area in Lyme Bay and its proposed extension, as well as the impact of the Marine Bill on the fishing industry both locally and as a whole.

Editor’s Note: this talk by David Sales is one of a series of lectures organised by Mr Morpurgo and his wife Ioana. It’s at 8pm on Friday 12th March, at Marsh Barn, Burton Road, Bridport, ie, just off the main road between Bridport and Burton Bradstock. Entrance costs £6.

The artist Richard Harris has been commissioned to produce a permanent work of art in response to the construction of the Dorchester to Weymouth Relief Road. The Earthscapes exhibition at Bridport Arts Centre shows some initial ideas - and this is one

Some notes on the Earthscapes exhibition at Bridport Arts Centre, curated by Sherborne House Arts

Part 1: The Project straightforwardly Described

A SCALE MODEL of a sculpture to be sited either side of the new Dorchester to Weymouth Relief Road has gone on show for the first time.

It’s on display at Bridport Arts Centre as part of Sherborne House Arts’ Earthscapes exhibition.

The work by sculptor Richard Harris shows some 28 boulders gradually rising on steel poles reaching to 3m (10ft) above the Southdown Ridge.

All the rocks ­- weighing between one and eight tonnes ­- are sourced from the 1.6m tonnes of material moved from the site where work on the road has been taking place.

If it gets the go-ahead, the sculpture will be on both sides of the road and will curve off up the slopes of the cutting following the natural geological strata.

Lines of stones are to be mounted on poles close to where they were dug up

An aerial view of the proposed public art work along the sides of the Dorchester to Weymouth relief road

The poles will curve up the sides of the cuttings

The excavated rocks are between 160 and 65 million years old and started being formed in what would have been a tropical lagoon. The concretions are formed around small matter such as a leaf or a fossil and steadily build up over millions of years solidifying by chemical processes.

Mr Harris said: “I was asked to consider the landscape, context of the whole road and having worked on several proposals for different sites ­ this is the idea that I feel is the strongest and most appropriate. Some of the geology has been exposed by the cutting but will eventually become less visible as the grass grows.

“This proposal puts the geology back where it was ­ but visible­ continuing up above the hill indicating where it would have been before it was weathered away.”

Mr Harris said he had been involved with the project since January last year making many visits to the site and consulting with geologists.

As if an invisible car was driving through in mucky weather and spraying up stones

He said: “This idea came in the late summer and only came about when the work had started and the stones had been revealed.

“The heavier stones will rise up from the ground and will get progressively smaller as they run through the air to the top of the slope.

Big stone...

... Small stone (fascinatingly coloured and shaped)

“What I am trying to do is give an inspiring image as people come into Weymouth and to reveal the geology in a dramatic way.”

 The idea of incorporating art in relation to the road was initially proposed in the Weymouth and Portland Commissioning Plan for 2012.

It stated that public art could be used to make the £87m road ­ which is due to open in Spring next year – more attractive for drivers.

The work is being supported by Arts Council England, South West and Dorset County Council.

Mr Harris is now working with Skanska, the contractors, Dorset County Council and his own engineers to develop the project. 

Part 2: ‘Earthscapes’ as an exhibition title

THERE AREN’T many better words in the English language than ‘scape’. It means so much and is so capable of forming suggestive associations. Brickscape, prisonscape, cityscape, mudscape, hedgescape, landscape, moonscape, earthscape… It’s a brilliant word for conjuring up an external scene or, indeed, an externalised one – as in moodscape or mindscape.

Then there is the word ‘scape’ taken by itself. It’s long been used as a shortened form of ‘escape’ –  ‘scape’ breaks away and soon ends up leading an outlawry of meanings: a ‘scape’ is a fart; a transgression due to thoughtlessness; an outrageous sin; a slip of the tongue; a clerical error.

Shafted / Scaped

‘Scape’ can also be used to describe the shaft of a column, or the long stalk of a flower  rising directly out of its root.

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins used ‘scape’ to denote an impression or reflection of the individual quality of a thing or an action; its quiddity, its real nature or essence.

So you can start to see why an exhibition called Earthscapes is always going to be appealing, even before we get started on that titular coinage.

Why earthscapes and not landscapes? Perhaps because ‘land’ speaks too much of ownership and class, of power and authority – whereas ‘earth’ still escapes from some of those human forms? The earth, physically and mentally, is a space that none of us can ever truly hope to control – not forever – and space of course is an anagram of scape. At which point – at the mention of anagram – your mind can start to run away with possibilities (yes, to scape), because earth is also an anagram of heart.

So you can have earthscapes as ‘heartscapes’ or ‘heartspaces’ or ‘hearts paces’; pluck out the word art and you get ‘she art scape’, or ‘he art scapes’; and so on and on…

Part 3: The Relief Road Art Work as a Work of Art

You might regard everything written above as rather wild, but it is all relevant to the Dorchester to Weymouth relief road, and to Richard Harris’s initial models.

They’re fiendishly difficult designs to photograph, and if you’re interested you should go to see them for yourself, but I hope for now the pictures here show roughly what’s on display.

So, scapes: relevant how?

Firstly: in the crudest way, there will be people who regard what’s proposed as arty-farty nonsense – and, remember, ‘to let a scape’ does mean to break wind…

But let’s chuff on.

Secondly: look at the way the stones are upheld on shafts / columns / stalks – call them what you will – they are all ‘scapes’ and there are many different ways of viewing their form and layout. The stones for the real art work will come from excavations along the route. They will – you could argue – look like the severed heads on poles that used to be stood at the entrances to towns and cities (Dorchester once used to be gristled with the rotting heads of Catholic Martyrs who’d been hung, drawn and quartered). From that perspective, the two lines of scapes, moving down either side of the road, represent a triumphal assertion of power by Dorset County Council and its contractors.

Look what we have done! We have disembowelled the earth! We have built this road and routed our enemies!

Thirdly: and for what?

The stones curve like a sabre tooth, or perhaps a tongue

Or in these daubs like antennae or paw prints?

More still to follow: writer is thinking (when he gets chance)!  

There’s a most interesting story behind it.

In 1978 the artist Laurence Whistler gave this bound manuscript of a poem, some 80 pages long, to the Lyme Regis Philpot Museum, where it is on display. The author John Fowles had at this point just started his ten-year stewardship at the Philpot  as Honorary Curator. From the outset he regarded The Lymiad as one of the museum’s most precious possessions – for its verve, wit, and satirical humour; its vivid evocation of the manners and pastimes of a small Regency resort; and above all for its acute observations of the town, its people, and their preoccupations.

 Sadly, John Fowles died in 2005, so he never saw his dream of The Lymiad’s publication brought to fruition. Now the Museum’s Trustees have re-visited the project, in consultation with Mrs Sarah Fowles, his widow, and plan to launch a new edition of the manuscript; not a facsimile of the original, but designed as it might have appeared had it been published in 1819 – some 200 pages, soft-back, but with stitched pages and card covers marbled in the Regency manner.

The Lymiad will come out looking finer than this. At least, it'd better do!

 The edition will contain:

• An essay by John Fowles on “Lyme in the early 1800s’, published in 2003 from his original introduction
• A general introduction and textual note by John Constable
• A transcription of the text
• Editorial notes by John Fowles, John Constable and Jo Draper, the former curatorial consultant at the Museum.
• Illustrations from the Museum’s rich collection

The cost of the entire project is estimated at £4000. Some funds have already been raised, and it is hoped to raise the balance by 100 individual subscriptions of £20, the names of all those subscribing to be recorded in the publication.

For further information on this fascinating project contact Mary Godwin, the Museum’s Curator, on 01297-443370, or e-mail curator@lymeregismuseum.co.uk

*In 1997 the manuscript caught the attention of Dr John Constable, then Professor of English Literature at Kyoto University. Over the next few years he checked and studied the transcript and wrote the introduction.

In his words:  “The Lymiad emerges as a highly political and a thoroughly Whig poem, with some leanings towards the left of that party though stopping short of Radicalism itself.”

In view of Lyme’s political history, some may be surprised that “it stopped short of Radicalism itself”!

Should I stay or should I go? A speckled bush cricket in a wildlife-friendly Dorset garden. Dorset Wildlife Trust's webmaster Jane Adams, who took this picture, said: "It was a lucky photo. Just spotted it and took it. Within seconds it had moved on." Image copyright Jane V Adams. Reproduced here with kind permission of Dorset Wildlife Trust.

SIX per cent of households in West Dorset are members of Dorset Wildlife Trust. That’s double the average rate in other parts of the county.

So I was told when I went to give a talk at the Trust’s HQ at Forston between Dorchester and Cerne Abbas.

The Trust was discussing Living Landscapes, a new way of looking at relationships between wildlife, people and places. Part of the idea is that creatures should not just be corralled into core areas like nature reserves, they should be able to spread across Dorset, through bountiful spaces shared, enjoyed and valued by us all.

It’s a big project, still crystallising.

One element is a new contest competition to find the most wildlife friendly gardens in Dorset.

Hanging on! Another photo by Jane Adams: "This solitary bee, a Lasioglossum calceatum, looks very happy on the tiny flowers of my garden Heuchera. It's covered in bees for most of the day." Image copyright Jane Adams, reproduced with permission of DWT. More pictures from wildlife-friendly Dorset images can be seen on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/groups/wildlifegardensdorset

Joy Wallis, People and Wildlife Co-ordinator at Dorset Wildlife Trust, said: “The countryside and other urban open spaces are often unwelcoming and sterile, and they do not have the range of micro-habitats that many gardeners supply.

“We want to encourage gardeners across the county who are providing a haven for wildlife.

“The judges will be looking for gardens, however small, that welcome wildlife and so form a vital stepping stone between other suitable habitats.”

Gardens of all sizes are eligible and entries are welcome from individuals, groups of neighbours, whole streets, schools or communities. Judging will be in different size categories.

A nectar-rich garden border (Nicky Hoar, Dorset Wildlife Trust).

Gardens will need to provide a variety of sources of food such as nectar-rich flowers, seed and fruit planting with various sources of water, shelter and places to breed.

Entry to the competition is free. For more information and to download entry forms go to www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/wgc or www.thegardeneronline.co.uk,or visit Castle Gardens in Sherborne, Poundbury Gardens in Dorchester, or Dorset Wildlife Trust centres at Brooklands Farm, Lorton Meadows and the Urban Wildlife Centre. The closing date is 10 May. For more information, please contact Joy Wallis at Dorset Wildlife Trust on 01305 264620.

Prizes, which include a wildlife friendly collection of plants, gardening vouchers and books, will be presented by gardener Clive Farrell at a wildlife friendly gardening event at Castle Gardens, Sherborne, on 15 July. 

Wildlife Friendly garden features could include:

• Wildlife Pond Bog or permanently wet area
• Bird bath
• Bird Box
• Wild flower meadow
• Long grass area
• Nectar rich flower border and bushes
• Mixed Native Hedge
• Mature native tree
• Log pile and/or substantial decaying tree stump
• Compost heap
• No-go area
• Climbing plants/trellises suitable for nesting and feeding
• Slug pellet free

FOR MORE than seven long years the Literary & Scientific Institute in Bridport town centre has stood empty. Now though, the Bridport Area Development Trust has been given a chance to seek new uses for a building erected in the early 1830s as a Mechanics Institute, whose purpose was to help Bridport’s working classes educate themselves. In 1855 it become a more middle-class Literary and Scientific Institute; in the late 19th century it was an art school; in the late 20th a Dorset County Council library.

About 25 people are due to look round inside to dream and to calculate what might be. The pictures shown here need little commentary, but you’ll find the occasional note of explanation and literary tag.

All pictures were taken by Vince O’ Farrell of Bridport Area Development Trust, with whose kind permission they are now reproduced.

“Classical, that’s it – it is calm and classical… No low beatings and knockings about” (Mrs Jarley in Dickens’ The Old Curiosty Shop).

One of the reasons we know that the Institute was built in the early 1830s is that a book about Baptist churches published in 1835 complained that it made the garden setting of the chapel right by it, pictured below, less attractive to visitors.

The same book (by one  J. Murch) commented nonetheless on what “a handsome and commodious edifice” the new Institute  was.

“The scene was the familiar one of grandeur and desolation” (The End, Samuel Beckett).

Old buildings “were scaffolding once / and workmen whistling” (Images, T E Hulme). 

“… And immediately

“Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:

“The sun-comprehending glass,

“And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows

“Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.”

(High Windows, Philip Larkin)

The Bridport News (which, in circulation terms, includes the Lyme Regis News) is down to an average sale of 9,627 across every month of 2009. That’s a drop year-on-year of 116 copies from 9,743 (I was wrong in a comment on another story on this website to rely on my memory and suggest the circulation was 10,001).

Anyway, a drop of 116 copies doesn’t look too bad but the month-by-month figures for 2009 make far more interesting reading. As the official ABC certificate reveals, circulation crept up from 9,451 in January 2009 to a peak of 10,054 in July, and then it went down every month apart from one, until by December it was 8,837. The run up to Christmas can disrupt sales – who wants to spend Christmas Day reading a tedious “Review of the Year” in their local newspaper? – but even so that is a big drop. Hence perhaps the BN’s New Year offensive with more pages, new features, a fresh masthead slogan, and so on.

The Western Gazette is down over the last six months of 2009 to an average of 30, 789 (in December it was 29,192). Over the last two years the Gazette’s circulation has dropped by about 5,000.

Its West Dorset edition now sells on average 2,663 copies; the Sherborne edition shifts 2,841.

The population of West Dorset is about 97,000.