The layout of Bridport’s wide main streets has been the same for hundreds of years, and it’s easy to imagine that the town was always a good place to live. However, life in Bridport would have been very different 160 years ago.

In 1854, in a lecture to the Bridport Young Men’s Institute, Joseph Maskell said: “Bridport lies high and is fanned by breezes both from the sea and the neighbouring hills. It has every advantage, from a sanitary point of view, for carrying off the surplus drainage and securing a healthy and cleanly town.”  Yet, in an appendix to the publication of the lecture, Bridport is called “The Grave of Infancy”, and Maskell was not the only one drawing attention to Bridport’s problems.  Between 1849 and 1870 there were lectures, a petition to the Town Council and an article in the national press which called Bridport a “National Ulcer”.   The Privy Council would also intervene on three occasions because of claims that the death rate of its inhabitants was higher than it should be.  Following the last of these in 1870, the Town Council finally addressed the provision of a clean water supply and effective sanitation.

It’s hard to find descriptions of the poorer areas in those times, as the records which survive tend to be those of the richer merchants and landowners.  The back copies of the Bridport News help to fill that gap, with editorials and correspondence describing conditions in the Town.  Traditionally it is thought that Bridport’s problems were due to poor water and sanitation – in 1869 there were 289 wells in Bridport, 82 of which were listed as “not pure” – but the Bridport News painted a rather more complex story.

An editorial in March 1859 said “Strangers passing through Bridport for the first time are struck with the width and airiness of the principal streets, […] but they are, at the same time, almost invariably surprised to hear that we have a population of seven or eight thousand.  The truth is – one does not see half the town in simply walking through the five or six principal streets.  A very large proportion of the inhabitants live behind, in lanes, courts, and gradually alleys.  The stranger passes what he takes to be someone’s front door, little thinking it is the only means of access to six, eight, or a dozen tenements, containing thirty, forty or fifty people.”

The ‘courts’ referred to are of course the ropewalks that were based behind the main streets.  Each ropewalk was housed within what had been the traditional medieval “burgage plots”, the basic allocation of land for a house or business.  The evolution of plots into ropewalks is perhaps why Bridport’s layout remained unchanged for centuries.  Each ropewalk provided more than just the space to make ropes:  buildings were squeezed along one edge of the ropewalk to provide accommodation for some of those working in what was at this time still largely an outwork (home-based) enterprise.

In March 1859 the Curate of Bridport wrote to the Bridport News on the same topic, clearly disturbed by the living conditions of many in the town:

“…..First as to drainage:  during the summer season, the visitor to courts and yards inhabited by the poor continually meets with noisome smells of the most pestiferous character.  He is led to wonder how people can possibly live under such circumstances…….

…In another house three children died of fever within a short period, and other members of the family suffered very severely from the same disease.  Here was a terribly pestilential smell arising close beside a window of the house.  The Inspector of Nuisances was appealed to, and he repeatedly applied to the owner of the property, who always promised to attend to the nuisance immediately (thus deterring the Inspector from acting by himself), but has constantly neglected to do so……

….It remains to speak, secondly, of houses.  A large number of dwellings of the poor are little better than wretched hovels.  To make room for spinning-walks, they are crowded upon the least possible space, in the narrowest of courts and the closest of corners.  They are frequently old, dilapidated, small, very low ceiled and ill accommodated.  Bedrooms are so few, besides being excessively low, that many members of a family are frequently compelled to sleep together in one low crowded room, of which the atmosphere must presently become foul beyond description….. … The parts of the town alluded to seem to have been built purposely to defy ventilation and free currents of air.  Drainage, it is true, will not remedy this evil, but still may do much.  A comprehensive system of drainage is urgently needed.  This, doubtless, will be expensive, but not so costly to the community as the present disproportionate amount of sickness and mortality.”

The poorer housing was eventually replaced, and, thanks to the introduction of building regulations, to a far better standard.  The introduction of a water supply however was not so easy, and led to quite a few heated public and Town Council meetings!

Graham Avis- Research Volunteer

(adapted from an article original published in The Bridport Times)

All of the information included in this article is correct to the best of our knowledge. However, if you believe anything is incorrect, or would like to submit further information, then don’t hesitate to get in touch.