Bridport is first known to history in the year preceding the Conquest when it had a priory (St. Leonard’s) and a mint.  These have entirely disappeared and almost all the medieval structures except the church—­a good Perpendicular building with Early English transepts.  The only monument of interest, except that of Edward Coker, is a cross-legged effigy of one of the de Chideocks in the north transept.  The handsome pulpit and reredos are modern.  An old house in South Street called “Dungeness” was contemporary with the Priory, and near by is a fine old Tudor house, once the Castle Inn, but now used as a club.

The picturesque Town Hall with its clock turret is the best known feature of Bridport and lends quite a distinctive air to the broad High Street which has the vista of its west end filled by the cone-shaped Colmers Hill.  South Street leads to West Bay, at the mouth of the diminutive Bride or Brit.  The little town of late, mainly through the exertions of the Great Western Railway, has made an attempt to transform itself into a watering place.  The coast is attractive and possibly at some future date the railway and the local landowner will have their way, but at present West Bay is in a state of transition.  Many who knew the primitive aspect of the tiny port before the paved front and its shelters came to keep company with the hideous row of lodging houses that stand parallel with the Bride, will deplore the change, or hope for the time when that change will be complete and nothing is left to remind them of the lost picturesqueness of Bridport Quay.

Burton Cliff is the name of the odd rounded hill on the east that has been cut neatly in half by the slow wearing of the waves.  On the other side of it is Burton Bradstock, nearly two miles from West Bay station.  This place is unremarkable in itself but must be mentioned for its beautiful and picturesque situation.  It has been found by the holiday-maker, and houses of the red brick villa type are likely to increase in number unless the local builder can be prevailed upon to use local material.  The restored cruciform church, Perpendicular in style, has a modern addition in its clock, a relic of the old building of Christ’s Hospital in the City of London.

[Illustration:  PUNCKNOLL.]

Away to the north beyond the small village of Skipton Gorge, is Skipton Beacon, a hill with a striking and imposing outline.  Equally fine, though on a much smaller scale, is Puncknoll, away to the east of Swyre.  The hill or knoll is usually called Puncknoll Knob by the country people and, very absurdly, Puncknoll Knoll by some of the guide books.  It commands a perfectly gorgeous view of the sea and shore as far as Abbotsbury and over West Bay to the hills around Lyme.  The village that takes its name from the hill is behind it to the north.  In the small church is an old Norman font covered with carvings of interlaced ropes and heads; also some memorials of a local family, the Napiers, one of which is a refreshing change in regard to its inscription, which runs: