Bridport is surrounded by little green hills but one truly stands out, a squat cone topped with pine trees, and that's Colmer's Hill. Stand in the town's main street and its summit is perfectly framed on the near horizon, a silhouette so simplistic it's what a child would draw. Get closer and it looks even better.
The hill is an uplift of sandstone about two miles west of the town on the Symondsbury estate, technically on private land but with multiple permissive tracks to the top. If driving leave your vehicle in the free car park by the bijou barn/shop/cafe cluster and try not to be too distracted by the bacon rolls and willow weaving workshops. The tiny hamlet of Symondsbury somehow supports a pub and primary school, beyond which turn right past the circa 1449 farmhouse and keep climbing. It is tempting to aim for the summit prematurely but that gets ridiculously steep, plus the footpath ahead is arguably more amazing than the hill. Shutes Lane is a 'holloway', a sunken footpath following a faultin the clay which climbs in a shady notch between two fields. It looks like somewhere hobbits would live.
The sides of the holloway are dark with green ferns and gnarled roots, and the higher you climb the steeper they get. The rock is also very easy to scratch so heavily inscribed with names, patterns, designs and even in one location the face of Homer Simpson. Our groom and best man insisted they were not responsible for one particularly prominent act of nominative graffiti. I first learned of the holloway's existence in an episode of Radio 4's Open Country, which you can listen to here, although they didn't get the dappled light and sprinkling of bluebells that added even further to the eerie experience. Continue west and Shute's Lane becomes Hell's Lane, another holloway descending to the village of North Chideock, but for Colmer's Hill you need to dogleg back at Quarry Cross and follow the sheep track across open pasture.
It's not quite so steep on this side, and at 101m hardly the toughest of climbs, but still affords excellentviews across West Dorset on the way up. The summit alas is surrounded by a ring of pine trees which may look excellent from a distance but blocks much of the highest panorama, plus goodness knows how the Ordnance Survey see much from the trig point. When you're ready to descend watch out for bluebells and sheep on the way down, plus currently a lot of the cutest lambs, and you could easily have the entire circuit completed on half an hour flat.
Bridport is a Saxon town with a former penchant for ropemaking, so much so that a nickname for the hangman's noose was once a 'Bridport Dagger'. You can tell it's old because it has a North Street, West Street, South Street and East Street, three of which meet at the town hall, which is also where the Tourist Information Office resides. Bridport peaked historically when King Charles II stayed here while fleeing to France in 1651, overnighting in an old inn that's now a charity shop. Where the town continues to score highly is as a cultural hub with multiple festivals and arts events throughout the year, plus a steady stream of minor musical acts and Radio 4-friendly comedians taking to the stage at the Electric Palace.
We turned up on market day with the main streets lined by veg-sellers and crafty stalls, which proved invaluable for wedding-present-purchasing reasons. It also meant a live band was playing 70s classics to toetapping pensioners in Bucky Doo Square (and no, nobody knows for sure why it's called that). Food is another Bridport plus, not just the fact there's a Waitrose but also the wide variety of local produce and baked goods available at all price points from hearty sausage rolls to elegant seafood dining. For the full backstory to everything try Bridport Museum on South Street - that's a fiver - or for a longer explore try the three mile Bridport Green Route circuit - see free leaflet. All that's really missing is some seaside, and thankfully that's only a brief hop away.
West Bay is Bridport's slightly down at heel cousin, a place for chips and crabbing, but also rightly renowned for maritime pleasure and as the site of 'that' beach. The East Cliff is a stunning hump of golden sandstone, best seen in sharp sunshine, and also the site of the first death in Broadchurch which was totally filmed here. Stomp out across the pebble ridge and you'll soon reach the site where Danny Latimer's body was found, thankfully no longer roped off with David Tennant and Olivia Colman taking notes.
These days the clifftop is barriered instead, the wiggly path up the grass slope now untrodden as safety concerns over subsidence take precedence. Walk the beach and you can see the evidence - multiple small rockfalls and the occasional massive slump where an entire stack of sand has collapsed exposing more of the rock behind to inexorable weathering. The most recent large fall was overnight on30th December, depositing a huge orange mound all the way down to the water's edge and blocking shoreward passage. The power of the sea has inevitably cleared away the landslide re-enabling an exhilarating beachstroll with a sensational backdrop, although you can already see the cracks where the next chunk of golf course might fall next.
The heart of West Bay is a smallharbour at the mouth of the River Bride, a refuge for those who enjoying messing around in small boats and dipping for crabs. Around the edge are souvenir shops and a few sturdy pubs, including The George which appears to be where all the bikers end up after they've roared into town and pulled up by the bus turnaround. Ice cream is available in a variety of locations and forms (I plumped for the Purbeck Lemon Ripple) but the true common denominator is fish and chips. Of the six kiosks by the harbour bridge five sell chips and four additionally fish, all I think owned by the same local franchise so it doesn't matter which you pick. The battered cod was soft, flaky, delicious and still sub-£10... and best of all the seagulls stayed well out of reach.
Other sights to see in West Bay include a small but lovingly-compiled museum, officially the Discovery Centre, which is based in a convenient Victorian chapel. As well as exhibits they do a four page leaflet in case you want to identify the chief Broadchurch locations from all three series, most of which are within a five minute walk, including the amusement arcade where the local newspaper was supposedly based and the apartment block that doubled up as the police station. The detectives often walked out along the East Pier because it meant the TV cameras could get the iconic cliffs in the background. And this is also the precise point where Chesil Beach begins, the breakwater cutting off any further longshore drift, should you be a pebble starting your long journey down to Portland.
