Бридпорт: Англияның Дорсет аймағындағы тарихы бар қала

Town in Dorset, England

Bridport is a market town in Dorset, England, 2 mile (3 km) inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the Asker. Its origins are Saxon and it has a long history as a rope making centre. On the coast and within the town's boundary is West Bay, a small fishing harbour also known as Bridport Harbour. The town features as Port Bredy in Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels. In the 21st century, Bridport's arts scene has expanded with an arts centre, theatre, cinema and museum. In the 2011 census the population of Bridport's built up area was 13,568. The town is twinned with Saint Vaast la Hougue, France.

Bridport's origins are Saxon. During the reign of King Alfred it became one of the four most important settlements in Dorset – the other three being Dorchester, Shaftesbury and Wareham – with the construction of fortifications and establishment of a mint. Bridport's name probably derives from another location nearby. In the early 10th century the Burghal Hidage recorded the existence of a fortified centre or burh in this area, called 'Brydian', which is generally accepted as referring to Bridport. 'Brydian' means 'place at the (River) Bride', In 1086 the Domesday Book recorded that the town was called 'Brideport'; and by the subsequent reign of Edward I Bridport sent two members to Parliament. In the 14th and 15th centuries, like other Dorset coastal towns, Bridport suffered heavy losses due to frequent outbreaks of the Black Death; one 14th century account by Geoffrey Baker recorded that the disease "almost stripped the seaports of Dorset of their inhabitants". Around this time the town was also subjected to attacks by raiding French and Spanish forces. The earliest official record of this industry dates from 1211, when King John ordered that Bridport make "as many ropes for ships both large and small and as many cables as you can". The raw materials needed, flax and hemp, used to be grown in the surrounding countryside, though they were superseded in modern times by artificial fibres such as nylon. Bridport's main street is particularly wide due to it previously having been used to dry the ropes, after they had been spun in long gardens behind the houses. In the English Civil War (1642–1651) the population of Bridport mainly supported the royalists. At the end of the war in 1651 Charles II briefly stayed in the town at the George inn as he sought to escape Parliamentarian forces after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester. The skirmish ended with retreat of the rebel force, although many of the militiamen deserted and joined Monmouth's army. Many buildings in Bridport, particularly in the main street, date from the 18th century. Bridport Town Hall was built in 1785–6, with its clock tower and cupola added about twenty years later. During the 19th century Bridport's population grew little, unlike many Dorset towns, although many sturdy buildings were constructed at this time, showing that at least parts of the population remained prosperous. In 1857 the Bridport Railway was opened, which joined the town with the existing national rail network. This benefitted the town's textile industry and brought cheaper goods such as coal to the area. In 1884 the line was extended from Bridport's station to a new terminus on the coast at Bridport Harbour, which was renamed West Bay as part of attempts to promote it as a resort. The West Bay extension closed to passengers in 1930 and all traffic in 1962. The entire Bridport line closed in 1975. In county council elections, Dorset was divided into 42 electoral divisions, with Bridport being within two: Bridport Electoral Division (the majority of the town) and Bride Valley Electoral Division (includes Bothenhampton, Bradpole and St Andrew's Well). After 2019 structural changes to local government in England, Bridport is part of the Bridport ward which elects 3 members to Dorset Council.

Bridport is in the county of Dorset in South West England. Measured directly, it is about 14 mile (23 km) west of the county town Dorchester, 15.5 mile (25 km) SSW of Yeovil in Somerset, 33 mile (53 km) east of Exeter in Devon and 1.5 mile (2 km) inland from the English Channel at West Bay. The town centre is sited between the small River Brit and its tributary the Asker, about 0.5 mile (1 km) north of their confluence, at an altitude of Another small tributary, the River Simene, also joins the Brit to the west of the town centre. Bridport is composed of several small suburban districts, some of which used to be separate villages. These include Allington, Skilling, Coneygar, Bothenhampton, Bradpole, Court Orchard and St Andrew's Well. One and a half miles from the town centre and within the town's boundary is West Bay, a small fishing harbour known as Bridport Harbour until the arrival of the railway. The geology of Bridport comprises rocks formed in the Pliensbachian, Toarcian, Aalenian, Bajocian, Bathonian and Callovian ages of the Jurassic Period, overlain by superficial Quaternary deposits of alluvium alongside the rivers. There are several faults in the area, including the Mangerton Fault, which is aligned SSW NNE and runs from West Bay up the valleys of the River Brit and Mangerton River. This intersects with several E W faults, including three in the lower Brit Valley, between Bothenhampton and West Bay, that run east, and two, north of the town centre, that run west. The land beneath the town centre and to the west and southwest (around the neighbourhood of Skilling) is mostly Eype Clay, a micaceous mudstone/siltstone, though slightly younger Down Cliff Sand crowns the hill at Watton Cross. The hills immediately north of the town are formed from Bridport Sand, with Allington Hill and Watton Hill having small caps of Inferior Oolite. North of the hills, moving away from the town's built up area, undifferentiated Down Cliff Sand and Thorncombe Sand is separated from the Bridport Sand of the hills in most places by a band of Beacon Limestone. The hills east of the town, around Walditch and Loders, are also mostly of Bridport Sand capped by Inferior Oolite, with the Beacon Limestone outcropping near their base and the undifferentiated sands closer to the town. To the south east however, the faults running east from the lower Brit Valley are associated with a change to slightly younger material, mostly calcareous mudstones and sandstones (Fuller's Earth, Frome Clay and Forest Marble), with small outcrops of Cornbrash limestone and Kellaways Formation to the south of Bothenhampton parish church. The coast at Bridport is part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site that covers a continuous 96 mile (154 km) of coastline in Dorset and neighbouring east Devon. Chesil beach starts at Portland and ends at West Bay. The east pier of West Bay is at the east end of Chesil beach. All of the town is also within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, a protected landscape designation of national significance. The town's most notable landmark is the conical Colmers Hill, its distinctive shape and small clump of summit trees being very noticeable from West Street. Bridport is a Met Office coastal weather observation point.

In the 21st century, Bridport's arts scene has contributed to the town becoming increasingly popular with people from outside the locality. It has an arts centre, theatre, library, cinema and museum, and several annual events. Bridport Arts Centre originated in the early 1970s when local activists bought an old Wesleyan chapel and adjacent schoolroom on South Street and converted them into a theatre and art gallery—named the Allsop Gallery in memory of broadcaster and local resident Kenneth Allsop. The centre hosts a diverse programme of cultural events and since the 1990s has received funding from the Arts Council. In 1973 the centre founded the Bridport Prize, an annual international poetry and short story competition described by its patron Fay Weldon as "a prize really worth fighting for in terms of prestige and genuine literary accomplishment". The Electric Palace Cinema has occupied its existing site since 1926. It closed down in 1999 but an ensuing campaign to 'Save the Palace' resulted in the building being listed before being bought by a new owner and refurbished to include a digital projector, auditorium murals, a new restaurant and art deco bar. It reopened in 2007 and in March 2009 hosted the world premiere of The Young Victoria. The Lyric Theatre, which reopened in 2010, hosts quirky theatre, puppetry, comedy, clowning and music. It is also the base of children's theatre company Stuff and Nonsense. Bridport Museum, located in South Street, includes an extensive exhibition of the town's long history of rope making. Bridport features as 'Port Bredy' in the fictional 'Wessex' of Thomas Hardy's novels, and is the setting for Eden Phillpotts' 1918 novel The Spinners. Frederick Harcourt Kitchin, under the pseudonym Bennet Copplestone, used the area in his 1922 novel The Treasure of Golden Cap.

Bridport holds a number of festivals. The Bridport Literary Festival has been running since 2005 and has played host to literary figures such as Elizabeth Jane Howard, Victoria Glendinning, Minette Walters and Fay Weldon. Bridport Food Festival is held in late June at Asker Meadow. It showcases locally produced foods for which the area is well known. The Food Festival week concludes with the Round Table Beer Festival. Since 2010, there has been an annual Hat Festival which takes place in 'Bucky Doo Square' for a weekend every September. An annual Christmas Tree Festival is held every December in the United Church. Over sixty trees are decorated by local and national charities, with visitors able to make donations. Bridport holds an annual carnival on the third Saturday in August. The main feature is a carnival parade of floats, walking acts and majorettes, with other attractions including a car boot sale, fete and funfair. After the carnival South Street is closed for the night as live music is played while people dance in the street. The funfair is also open late. On the following night a torchlight procession takes place, with 1,500 torches carried 2 miles from the town centre to a bonfire at West Bay. This is followed by live music and fireworks. West Bay's funfair opens until late. The events raise money for local good causes and organisations. Melplash Show, described by its organisers as "the South West’s premier agricultural exhibition", is held annually on the showground at West Bay on the Thursday before the August Bank Holiday weekend. Local artists in Bridport and the surrounding area open up their studios as part of Bridport Open Studios, which marked its 15th year in 2013. The event takes place over the three days of the August Bank Holiday weekend and over 100 artists participate. The popularity of the event has led to three more open events in November, Easter and May. The biggest artist led venue is the St Michael's Studio complex on the St Michael's Trading Estate. It provides studios for 25 artists and attracted over 700 visitors to the 2009 event. Other one day events include the West Bay Wallow, a charity swim event in which participants often wear fancy dress, organised by the Bridport Round Table on Boxing Day, and a raft race in the River Brit basin, also at West Bay, in July; it is organised by the RNLI and participants race in homemade rafts and usually wear fancy dress. It has been run for over forty years and attracts thousands of spectators, with money raised for the RNLI.

Bridport has one local weekly newspaper, the Bridport News, owned by Newsquest and published on Thursdays. The Dorset Echo also serves Bridport and is published daily from Monday to Saturday. Local television is served by the BBC's Spotlight based in Plymouth and by the ITV West Country channel based in Bristol. Terrestrial television is transmitted in digital from the Stockland Hill Transmitter and also a digital relay transmitter based at Highlands End. Bridport's local commercial radio station is Greatest Hits Radio, which broadcasts on 96.0 FM from Highlands End. Owned by Bauer, it also serves Weymouth and Dorchester. BBC local radio station is BBC Radio Solent on 103. FM. To bridge the gap in the county, the BBC proposed launching BBC Radio Dorset, but this was dropped following BBC cutbacks. The Dorset Broadcasting Action Group campaigns for better coverage in the area. In 2012 following the BBC Trust's service review of BBC Local Radio it was approved that a new West Dorset breakfast opt out would be created from BBC Radio Solent. The report stated that "Dorset is relatively underserved by the BBC and other local providers. The county has no BBC Local Radio service and is at the fringes of the regional television areas". The service is broadcast weekday mornings for two hours from 7am on 103.8 FM from a studio complex based in Dorchester and presented by Steve Harris. There is currently no Podcast. Bridport has one community website, Bridport Radio, which uses a newspaper style format. It mixes local information with comedic made up news stories. The site allows users to comment on local subjects.

Bridport and the surrounding area was used to film Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Channel 4 television programme River Cottage and the BBC dramas Harbour Lights starring Nick Berry and Rockliffe's Folly starring Ian Hogg. West Bay was used to film the 1950s film The Navy Lark (based on the radio series of the same name), the opening credits of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and much of the filming of the crime drama Broadchurch, starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman, and was written by Chris Chibnall who lives in Bridport.

The A35 trunk road between Honiton and Southampton passes around the centre of Bridport on a bypass. Routes which start in the town include the A3066, which heads north through Beaminster towards Crewkerne, and the B3157 coast road to Weymouth. The busiest main route in the Bridport area is the A35 west of the town at Miles Cross, which in 2012 had an average of 15,200 vehicles per day – this was an 85% increase over vehicle numbers in 1983, but a 3% decrease compared to 2007. Other main routes around the town have experienced similar changes. Opposite the church is a Society of Friends Meeting House. There has been a Quaker presence in the town since the middle of the 17th century. George Fox visited the Friends in the town in 1655 and said, "A fine Meeting there is there." The Bridport Quaker Meeting still meets for worship on Sunday and Wednesday mornings. Bridport has a history of nonconformism; a Dissenters' Academy was built in the town in 1768, and by 1865 the single Anglican church, St Mary's, was outnumbered by non Church of England establishments by seven to one. The Unitarian "Chapel in the Garden", on the north side of East Street, provides a neutral development resource for an open faith community.

Within the parishes of Bridport, Allington, Bradpole and Bothenhampton are 514 structures that are listed by Historic England for their historical or architectural interest. Three of these are listed as Grade I (the designation of highest significance), seventeen are Grade II*, and the rest are Grade II. The three Grade I structures are Bridport Town Hall, the Parish Church of St Mary, and Holy Trinity Old Church in Bothenhampton. The seventeen Grade II* structures are: Bridport Museum, The Chantry and Daniel Taylor's almshouses (and wall of the Friends' burial place) in South Street; No. 34 and Granville House in West Street; the Literary and Scientific Institute (the old library), Granby House Masonic Hall, No.9 and the walls to the garden behind No.74 in East Street; Nos.133–139 (one structure) and the Church of St Swithun in North Allington; Nos. 27 and 29 (one structure) in West Allington; Downe Hall in Rawles Way; the Unitarian chapel in Rax Lane; Berry Farmhouse on Lower Walditch Lane; Messrs Norman goods warehouse in West Bay; and the new Holy Trinity Church in Bothenhampton.

The town's football club is Bridport F. C., known as "The Bees". They currently play in the Western Football League Premier Division. The club was founded in 1885 and the home ground is St. Mary's Field. The town's rugby union club is Bridport RFC. Bridport & West Dorset Golf Club is situated atop of the east cliff at West Bay. The club has an 18 hole links course, driving range and pitch and putt course. Bridport Barracudas Swimming Club is based at Bridport Leisure Centre. A Water Polo section has junior and senior teams competing in the Dorset Water Polo League. Water Polo matches are held in summer in the outer harbour at West Bay, continuing a tradition dating back to 1898. The area also hosts a real tennis court, one of 27 in the UK. Hyde court, near the village of Walditch, was renovated and re opened in 1998 with the aid of a lottery grant. Bowling is represented by Bridport Bowling Club, in Priory Lane (flat green outdoors in summer and short mat in winter), and Bridport Indoor Bowling Club in Shoe Lane.