Bridport Arts Centre is an arts centre in Bridport, Dorset, England. Founded in 1973, it is housed in and around a 19th-century, Grade II listed building, formerly known as the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. The complex includes the Marlow Theatre, the Allsop Gallery and a cinema.
The centre runs the Bridport Prize, an international literary competition. Annual awards are made in four categories: short stories, poetry, flash fiction and first novel. The winners are announced during the Bridport Open Book Festival. The centre also runs the From Page to Screen Festival, an annual film festival celebrating literary adaptations.
The Methodist chapel was designed by the architect James Wilson of Bath. It was built in 1838, and opened on 28 November of that year. The front elevation, having four giant Doric pilasters with entablature and pediment, originally had "Wesleyan Methodist Chapel" written on its frieze. It is a Grade II listed building. [1]
The arts centre was founded in 1973, with Peggy Chapman-Andrews (1921–2013) playing a leading role in its establishment. [2] The chapel was converted into the Marlow Theatre, with a seating capacity of 200. The chapel's adjacent schoolroom was converted into the Allsop Gallery, an exhibition space named after Kenneth Allsop. [3]
In February 2016, Arts Council England agreed to provide a grant of £344,200 to renovate the Marlow Theatre and other facilities, subject to the centre raising a further £230,000. [4] The centre re-opened in September 2016, after renovations costing £444,000. [5]
The Bridport Prize International Creative Writing Competition was founded in 1973 by Peggy Chapman-Andrews, originally as a fund-raising scheme for the new arts centre. Levels of international participation soon rose. Fay Weldon became Patron in 2006. [6] There were originally two categories, poetry and short stories. In 2010 a new category, flash fiction, was added. In 2014, the Peggy Chapman-Andrews first novel award was added. [7]
The winners are announced during a literary festival, [3] the Bridport Open Book Festival, which is run by the centre in the autumn. [8] Each year's top four poems are entered for the Forward Prizes for Poetry, while the top 13 stories (if British) are entered for the BBC National Short Story Award and the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. [6]
The centre runs the From Page to Screen Festival, celebrating adaptations of books to film, in the spring. [3]
Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, 25 miles (40 km) west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site and heritage coast. The harbour wall, known as The Cobb, appears in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, the John Fowles novel The French Lieutenant's Woman and the 1981 film of that name, partly shot in the town. A former mayor and MP was Admiral Sir George Somers, who founded the English colonial settlement of Somers Isles, now Bermuda, where Lyme Regis is twinned with St George's. In July 2015, Lyme Regis joined Jamestown, Virginia in a Historic Atlantic Triangle with St George's. The 2011 Census gave the urban area a population of 4,712, estimated at 4,805 in 2019.
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about 96 miles (154 km), and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December 2001.
Bridport is a market town in Dorset, England, 2 miles (3.2 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.
Beaminster is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the Dorset Council administrative area approximately 15 miles (24 km) northwest of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in a bowl-shaped valley near the source of the small River Brit. The 2013 mid-year estimate of the population of Beaminster parish is 3,100.
Burton Bradstock is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, approximately 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) southeast of Bridport and 1⁄2 mile (0.8 km) inland from the English Channel at Chesil Beach. In the 2011 Census the parish had a population of 948. The village lies in the Bride Valley, close to the mouth of the small River Bride. It comprises 16th- and 17th-century thatched cottages, a parish church, two pubs, a primary school, shop, post office stores, beach café, hotel, garage, village hall, reading room a library. The parish has a National Coastwatch Institution Station, Lyme Bay Station.
Chideock is a village and civil parish in south west Dorset, England, situated close to the English Channel between Bridport and Lyme Regis. Dorset County Council's 2013 estimate of the parish population is 550.
Kenneth Allsop was a British broadcaster, author and naturalist.
John Kay is a British poet and teacher who is currently living in Bournemouth, Dorset.
The Liberty Trail is a 28-mile (45.1 km) trail between Ham Hill in Somerset and Lyme Regis in Dorset, England.
The Three Cups Hotel is a hotel in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England. It lies across the street from the Royal Lion Hotel. It became a listed building on 23 April 1952.
The Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner is the police and crime commissioner, an elected official tasked with setting out the way crime is tackled by Dorset Police in the English County of Dorset. The post was created in November 2012, following an election held on 15 November 2012, and replaced the Dorset Police Authority. The first incumbent is Independent Martyn Underhill, who retired in 2021 after his head of ethics was jailed for repeatedly engaging in sexual communications with two underage 'girls'.
West Bay Methodist Church is a former Methodist chapel at West Bay, West Dorset, England. Opened in 1849, the chapel was locally known as "the chapel on the beach". It closed in 2007 and was transformed into the West Bay Discovery Centre in 2018. The former chapel has been Grade II listed since 1975.
St Peter's Church is a Church of England church in Eype, Dorset, England. Built in 1864–65, the church now also serves as an arts venue, known as the Eype Centre for the Arts.
St John's Church is a Church of England church in West Bay, Dorset, England. It was built in 1935–39 to the designs of William Henry Randoll Blacking and has been a Grade II listed building since 1975.
Claire Askew is a Scottish novelist and poet.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is a novel by Deepa Anappara, published in 2020. Her debut novel, it received wide praise and won the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize in 2019. Djinn Patrol is shortlisted for the 2020 JCB Prize and was longlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction. The novel won the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Novel.
Wyke Regis Methodist Church is a former Methodist church in Wyke Regis, Dorset, England. Designed by Ford & Slater of Burslem, it was built in 1903 and remained in use until 2021.
The Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliffs, also often referred to in the singular as the Undercliff, is a 5-mile (8.0 km) long landscape feature, National Nature Reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest that connects Seaton and Axmouth with Lyme Regis on the south-west coast of England. Like its namesake on the Isle of Wight, this feature arose as a result of landslips, where a slump of harder strata over softer clay gave rise to irregular landscapes of peaks, gullies and slipped blocks. Because of the resulting difficulty of access and change of land use, the undercliff has become densely vegetated, and has become a rare and unusual habitat for plants and birds.
The Statue of Mary Anning is a bronze sculpture of the paleontologist Mary Anning in Lyme Regis.