The Blandford Express

In the Bridport News of Friday 6th February 1903, nonagenarian Digory Hopkins Gordge recalled his time as a Charmouth smuggler. With agricultural wages depressingly low, at around 16 old pence (6p) per day, merely carrying goods from a smuggling vessel to shore could earn around 30 old pence (12p) per night. This was an attractive proposition and could help to put food on the table. While farmers might complain about the effects of smuggling on their workforce, they would also be grateful to make gains from the trade themselves. Born in Bridport in 1809, Digory remembered in the 1830s a French lugger, carrying kegs of brandy, lying about four miles off shore. French crews, mainly from Cherbourg, would ship cargoes to the Dorset coast. They were guided to favoured landing places by fast growing clumps of trees planted on hills behind each inlet. Only the darkest nights were chosen for a smuggling job. As many as 70 men, drawn from local villages, put off in boats and came back with two ...

Keith Floyd was a flamboyant celebrity chef and popular television personality who had strong links with Dorset. He filmed one of his early programmes Floyd on Fish in the George Inn in South Street, Bridport. Floyd developed his own unique and eccentric presenting style, which often involved haranguing his cameraman, while he cooked with a glass of wine in his hand. However, he did not consider himself to be a chef as he had not been professionally trained. Keith Floyd was born in Sulhamstead, near Reading in December 1943 and joined the British Army in 1963. He left after three years reckoning that he and the army were mutually incompatible. After the army, he became a dish washer, vegetable peeler and eventually a restauranteur. One of his restaurants was in the Vaucluse Department in Southern France. In 1984, he was offered his first television series Floyd on Fish. One of the scenes featured Floyd cooking on a trawler.  Floyd on Food, Floyd on Great Britain and  Floyd on ...

Julia Rosamund Harrison was the daughter of the Reverend John Harrison of Toller Porcorum, near Bridport and Julia attended the local village school. As a 17 year-old she won the title of Dorset Youth Clubs Hostess of the Year. For the offspring of a Dorset clergyman,  her career was to go off in an unexpected direction. One of her first jobs was working as an air hostess and then as a nanny for the actress, Diane Cilento - the first wife of James Bond actor, Sean Connery. She then became a Bunny Club  croupier. Julia met the Soho club owner and magazine publisher Paul Raymond and embarking on a new career as an actress and glamour model she decided to use the alias, Fiona Richmond. As a sex-symbol of the times, she appeared in stage plays and magazines and had a talent for self promotion. Fiona Richmond was in the forefront of the sexual revolution in the 1970s and once rode naked Lady Godiva-like through the streets of Soho. She was fined twenty pounds. In 1976, a national n...

West Dorset village of Toller Porcorum was in ‘a state of great excitement’ one Sunday night in October 1902 when, according to the Bridport News,  its little wooden station was destroyed by fire. Opened in March 1862, Toller Station could be found on the railway branch line which connected Maiden Newton with Bridport. It appears that the station-master, Mr Bradley was in his office and had an accident with a lamp. There was an explosion and the place was soon ablaze. Overlooking the station was the Vicarage where the Reverend D Clarke detected a strong smell of burning wood and resin. Seeing a cloud of smoke, the clergyman hurriedly dressed and ran outside to see what assistance he could give. He saw that the station-master had his arms severely burnt and his fingers badly cut. Reverend Clarke hurried onto the platform and threw what water there was at hand over the fire. Unfortunately by this time the whole place was ablaze. At one moment both the Vicarage and the Old Swan Inn, w...

  West Bay, or Bridport Harbour as it was once called, is not now somewhere normally associated with shipbuilding. Yet, around two centuries ago it was an important shipbuilding centre with around 350 vessels being built there. Most of the workers were from Bridport while others came from Eype and Burton Bradstock. The clipper, Speedy  was the largest vessel ever built there. Some 200 feet in length, it took several attempts in 1853 to launch her. She sat firmly aground for two weeks, awaiting a higher tide to float her. The vessel was featured in a December 1853 edition of the Illustrated London News. It was said it was ‘very lofty between decks’ and the passenger cabins were ‘of the highest order.’ Like the Cutty Sark , which can still be viewed at Greenwich, the Speedy was constructed for the Australia run. She was constructed of teak and English oak and first arrived in Sydney on 22nd March 1854. This passage took 83 days with the Equator being crossed on the 20th day. Bui...

Bridport’s bread riots were unusual for their times because they featured three female rioters. They were  Elizabeth Phillips (25), Susan Saunders (22) and Hannah Powell (21) and all three were twine spinners. Twine spinning was part of the rope making process. The riots took place on 23rd April 1816 when hundreds of Bridport people came onto the streets to protest against the high price of bread. In the previous twelve months wheat prices had doubled with the consequential effects on bread prices. This was caused by an extremely poor harvest. Wages were particularly low in Dorset and many men returning from the Napoleonic Wars could not find employment. The weather that year was bad such that the year became known as ‘eighteen hundred and freeze to death!’ Bakers were a particular target because they had a reputation for corruption. As it was usually the women who bought bread they probably knew which bakers overcharged and provided short measure. Some of the Bridport bakers had t...

When a Member of Parliament disappeared in December 1881 off the coast at Eype’s Mouth, near Bridport, it made the national news. What was unusual was that Walter Powell MP was the sole occupant of a balloon. It was named ‘Saladin’ and filled with coal gas. Rumour has it that so much coal gas was needed that the people of Bath had to do without. Walter Powell had taken off from Bath to carry out research for the Meteorological Society accompanied by friends Arthur Agg-Gardner and Captain James Templar. They had flown over Glastonbury, Crewkerne and Beaminster. Approaching  Bridport, at around 35mph, they realised they were heading in a direction that would take them out to sea. Anxiously hearing the roar of the sea, Templar opened a valve to allow gas to escape to make a hurried emergency descent. They landed heavily and Powell’s two passengers fell out with Arthur Agg-Gardner  breaking his leg. The Parliamentarian remained in the basket and the balloon much lighter took off a...

Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue in Normandy.

More than 100 years ago, women workers in Gundry’s rope factory in Bridport ‘downed tools’ and went on strike. In February 1912, this dispute broke out when the employer wanted to change pay rates which would have resulted in some women being paid less. After marching around the town singing songs, they assembled outside the factory gates to dissuade others from entering the works. Factory manager Mr Macdonald suggested that West Dorset’s Conservative MP Colonel Robert Williams should be appointed as an arbitrator to resolve the dispute. The women turned this proposal down believing this appointment would favour the employer too much. The strike continued and nine pounds thirteen shillings and eight pence (£9.68) was donated by the public and distributed among the strikers. (This sum would be worth around £1,300 today.) Ada Newton, an officer in the National Federation of Women Workers, arrived in Bridport from London and convened a meeting of strikers in the Hope & Anchor pub in B...